NEW DELHI: Reversing a two-year declining trend, India’s reliance on the volatile Middle East region for meeting its crude oil needs has risen in 2015-16, with quantum jump in buying from Iraq.
India imported 109.09 million tonnes of crude from the 10 nations in the Middle East during first 11 months of 2015-16 fiscal, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Lok Sabha here. The region supplied 59.22 per cent of the total 184.21 million tonnes of crude oil imported by India during April, 2015 and February, 2016.
In the entire 2014-15 fiscal, India had imported 109.88 million tonnes or 58 per cent of its entire oil need of 189.44 million tonnes, from the Middle East.
The reliance on the Middle East in that year had declined from 61 per cent in the previous 2013-14 fiscal when the region supplied a total of 115.86 million tonnes of oil. In 2012-13, the Middle East accounted for 62.44 per cent of oil supplies.
In a written reply to a question, Pradhan said Saudi Arabia continues to remain India’s number one crude oil supplier, selling 37.10 million tonnes of oil in April-February period of the last fiscal. Saudi supplies were up from 35 million tonnes in 2014-15.
