[EOB]Iran to halt crude oil supply to India

Iran has threatened to halt crude oil supplies to India if it is not paid, local English language daily Tehran Times reported on Sunday. Iran threatened to stop its crude exports to India from August if New Delhi fails to pay 9 billion dollars for oil imports from Iran, which is now seven months in arrears, said the report. According to the local reports, India has been supplied some 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil on credit by Iran since late December last year. Under the USZ pressure in December last year, the Reserve Bank of India scrapped a long-standing system to pay for import from Iran using a clearing house system run by regional central banks and since then the Indian government has been trying to find an alternative mechanism to the scrapped system.

India and Iran's other crude customers are under the USZ pressure to reduce oil transactions with Iran and under the pressures the current payment mechanisms for clearing the debts have faced serious problems. Iran is the second largest crude supplier to India by meeting the 12 percent of its annual oil needs after Saudi Arabia.