India can...

Unlike Japan and South Korea, which temporarily stopped oil imports from Iran in September, Indian Oil and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals continued purchases though the overall volume dropped slightly from around 10 million barrels in October to nine million barrels for November.“there is no current possibility of going to zero,” one of the people said, referring to the repeated demands by key US officials, such as Pompeo, that all countries cut Iranian oil imports to zero. India’s imports in the coming months are expected to hover around the nine million barrel mark, the people said.

Iran is the third-largest supplier of energy for India, after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and offers various incentives that make it a more cost-effective supplier. India is Iran’s second largest purchaser of crude and Tehran accounted for almost 20% of New Delhi’s oil imports in the first quarter of 2018-19. The cost is a key factor for the Indian government at a time when the rupee has been hit by the appreciation of the dollar, the people said. Any drastic cut in imports could also have driven up oil prices, they added.

The Indian side also reasoned it would be difficult for the US administration to refuse waivers to key allies such as India and Japan, despite the hardline stand taken by President Donald Trump, who pulled the US out the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May and threatened sanctions to bring Tehran to the negotiating table for a new deal on its nuclear arsenal and missile programme. India’s leadership has insisted it will go by UN sanctions and not unilateral matters and the first indication of its autonomous decision making