Since taking office on January 20, how to handle the conflict with Iran has become an important test for the new US President Biden. However, India, which has always followed the footsteps of the United States in international affairs, has unexpectedly released a friendly signal to Iran in recent days. What’s going on?
According to the latest market news, on March 9, the chairman of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation publicly stated that India would consider purchasing Iranian crude oil if the time comes. Indian officials broke the news to the British media that due to the continued rise in international crude oil prices, India’s oil purchase costs have increased significantly, which is not conducive to India’s recovery of economic growth. It is expected that Iranian crude oil will return to the Indian market within 3-4 months.
In addition, employees at Indian refineries also revealed that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had previously released news that the group would negotiate with India on crude oil supply as early as June this year. Sign an agreement.
As the world’s three largest oil consumers, India imports 80% of its crude oil by sea every year, and the Middle East is its most important source of crude oil. In January this year, due to the reduction in crude oil supply from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, India turned to the United States and Canada to purchase more oil. The scale of imported crude oil reached 142,000 barrels/day and 367,000 barrels/day respectively.
However, it seems that in order to control crude oil costs, India is not satisfied with crude oil supplies from the United States and Canada. According to a report by Sina Finance on March 2, India issued an appeal, hoping that the OPEC+ organization that is about to hold a crude oil production meeting can make a decision to increase oil production starting from April this year.
Previously, in order to save the plummeting oil market, OPEC countries jointly agreed to reduce production. Due to the US ban, Iranian crude oil cannot freely enter the market. Data recently released by IHS MARKIT, a well-known market research institution, shows that if Iran is allowed to freely buy and sell oil, the market’s crude oil supply will increase by 1.5-2 million barrels per day in the next few months.
On March 9, Iranian representatives once again shouted to the United States to quickly lift economic restrictions on Iran. If the United States decides to return to the previous cooperation agreement, Iran can also quickly Reversal related actions.
In fact, seeing that the US boss has not clearly expressed its attitude towards Iran, India itself does not dare to relax. On March 4, an official from the Indian Ministry of Industry revealed that currently, Indian businessmen have hardly signed any new commodity export contracts with Iranian traders. So, with the current strong demand for crude oil, will India change its attitude towards Iran? </p
