Iran is using its own ships to transport oil to India as not many shipping lines participated in recent tenders for transportation of Iranian oil.
Meanwhile, India’s media say Iran has started to provide insurance coverage to oil shipments to India so as to continue exporting the strategic fuel to its second largest buyer in light of US sanctions.
Iran was India's second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia till 2010-11 but western sanctions over its peaceful nuclear programme relegated it to the seventh spot in the subsequent years.
In 2013-14 and 2014-15, India bought 11 million tonnes and 10.95 million tonnes respectively from the country.
Sourcing from Iran increased to 12.7 million tonnes in 2015-16, giving it the sixth spot. In the following year, the Iranian supplies jumped to 27.2 million tonnes to catapult it to the third spot.
In 2017-18, India bought 22.6 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran.
Iran became India's second-biggest supplier behind Iraq in the first three months of current fiscal, supplying 8.93 million tonnes of oil.
Iran's national currency revenues of oil export has witnessed 74 percent increase in spring, government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said last week.
