Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh says there are appropriate grounds for the development of relations between Iran and India in the oil and gas sector.During a meeting with Indian Ambassador to Tehran Shri D.P. Srivastava on Sunday, Zanganeh stressed the need for broader energy cooperation between the two countries at the international level.
The Indian diplomat, for his part, congratulated Zanganeh on his appointment as Irans new oil minister and stressed the need for further energy cooperation between Tehran and New Delhi.
Major Indian oil refinery, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), received about 85,000 metric tons of Iranian crude on August 17 despite the illegal US-engineered embargoes against the Islamic Republic's oil and financial sectors.
The purchase came after India prepared a 20-billion-rupee ($314 million) insurance fund to cover future oil imports from Iran.
MRPL's managing director P. P. Upadhya said the company has ordered three more shipments of a similar quantity, without stating delivery schedules.
This is the first cargo weve got from Iran this financial year and well see how many more we can import in the rest of the year, he stated. The same ship has returned to Iran and will bring the additional cargoes.
In India, the government's financial year runs from April 1 to March 31.
India is among Asias major importers of energy and relies on the Islamic Republic of Iran to meet a portion of its energy demands.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Irans oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
By Press TV
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