Indications have emerged that the lifting of sanctions against Iran could take up Nigeria’s share of oil export to India.
Economic sanctions on Iran were lifted on Saturday, January 16, after the UN nuclear agency certified that the country has committed stop of its nuclear programme.
The lifting restores Iran’s access to the world’s markets. According to reports, the country is expected to increase its daily export of 1.1m barrels of crude oil by 500,000 and a further 500,000 thereafter.
Iran is said to be targeting India as its main destination for the crude and is already in supply negotiations with the country over export of thousands of barrels.
If the crude supply deal goes through, it could for the first time in years shrink Nigeria’s crude export to India. India has remained the largest buyer of Nigerian crude since the United States cut its import of Nigeria’s crude.
Prior to 2012 Nigeria accounted for about 10 percent of crude oil imported into the United States, according to data by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). But the Nigeria-US export has shrank below 5 percent to date.
India bought around 136m barrels of crude from Nigeria in 2014 to emerge the highest importer of Nigeria’s oil, according to NNPC’s statistical bulletin for 2014.
That data translates to 11.3m monthly and around 373,000 barrels per day (bpd). According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Foreign Trade Statistics for Q3, 2015, the value of Nigeria’s crude oil exports to India, the world’s third largest crude importer, rose by N31bn from N352bn in the second quarter (Q2) to N383bn in the third (Q3) of 2015.