Comments
India is exploring paying for crude oil it buys from Iran in rupee after the US forced Germany to stop routing payments through a Hamburg-based bank.
India in February had begun clearing past dues to Iran by making euro payments through German-based Europisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG (EIH Bank). But EIH Bank, which is owned by Iran, is a banned entity in the US and Washington used its influence on Germany to stop payments.
“We are working with Iran to evolve an alternate payment mechanism. We hope to firm up plans very soon,” a top Finance Ministry official said.
The problem had arose after Reserve Bank of India in December last year scrapped a long-standing payment mechanism used to pay for Iranian crude imports. Early in March, the Petroleum Minister, Mr Jaipal Reddy, had told Parliament that “pending dues of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) are now being cleared and as of March 1, 2011, payment of €1.5 billion has been made to the Central Bank of Iran.”
But that was the last payment made to Iran as soon after the news broke out, the US clamped down. Oil supplies from Iran have, however, not been affected and the Persian Gulf nation continues to sell oil on credit backed by corporate guarantee.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.