India more than quadrupled its imports of U.S. crude oil between November last year and May this year as the U.S. sanctions on Iran significantly reduced Iranian crude purchases at refiners in India, which was Iran’s second-largest oil customer until last month. According to tanker arrival data that Reuters has obtained from industry and shipping sources, the growth in U.S. oil supplies to India was significantly higher than the increase of Indian purchases of oil from its traditional Middle Eastern sources of supply. Between November 2018 and May 2019—the period in which the U.S. slapped sanctions on Iran’s oil exports allowing six-month exemptions for the largest buyers, including India, and the end of those waivers in May—Indian refiners bought around 184,000 bpd of U.S. crude oil, up from just 40,000 bpd in the same period the previous year. Between the start of the U.S. sanctions and the end of […]