The owner of the world’s biggest refining complex,Reliance Industries Ltd, has halted imports of Iranian crude ahead of U.S. sanctions against Tehran’s oil sector, its joint chief financial officer said.The United States plans to impose new sanctions on Iran’s oil sector from November 4 in a bid to curb Iranian involvement in conflicts in Syria and Iraq and bring Tehran to the negotiating table over its ballistic missile programme.
“We continue to get (Venezuelan oil) but I would say it is lower,” Srikanth said. “Iranian supplies are zero. Therefore we have had to look at alternatives like… Middle Eastern crudes, and we are also taking some U.S. grades.”
The company’s decision to stop buying Iranian oil from October-November came after an advisory from its insurers, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters in May.
Reliance imported 2 million barrels of Iranian oil in September, ship tracking data obtained from sources showed.
Its two advanced plants at Jamnagar in western Gujarat state can together process 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and have the capability to turn cheaper, dirtier crudes into high-value refined products.
Reliance on Wednesday reported a record quarterly profit in the July to September period. “Our integrated refining and petrochemicals business generated strong cash flows,” chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
However, its gross refining margin for the three months through September, or profit earned on each barrel of crude processed, fell to $9.50 per barrel, a 3-1/2 year low.
Reliance said higher oil prices, a narrowing price spread between light and heavy crude and weaker light distillate cracks during the quarter had affected its refining and marketing business.
Reliance had also declared force majeure on gasoline exports from its Jamnagar site in August due to a technical glitch at a fluid catalytic cracker.
The company’s exports of refined products during the September quarter totalled 10.1 million tonnes compared to 11.2 million tonnes a year earlier.
