New Delhi: India on Wednesday expressed its “readiness” to import more crude oil and gas from the US, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said in a press briefing on the meeting between Prime Minister Nardenra Modi and US Vice-President Michael Pence in Singapore on Wednesday.
“We have begun importing oil and gas from US. It is expected to be valued about $4 billion this year and we expressed our readiness to import more oil and more gas from the US as a way of expanding our trade,” Gokhale said, as per a transcript of the briefing released on the foreign ministry’s website.
This comes at a time when the US has re-imposed sanctions on various sectors of Iran’s economy, including oil and gas. Though the US has granted a temporary waiver from the sanctions to a few countries, including India, the latter has had to substantially cut its oil imports from Iran.
India is looking at various suppliers to cover the reduction in oil imports from Iran, which was India’s second-largest supplier of oil till a few months ago. Apart from the US, Saudi Arabia had also expressed its willingness to increase oil exports to India in view of the sanctions on Iran.
Indian refiners started buying crude oil from the US after Modi’s visit to that country in 2017.Apart from oil trade, various other matters–from defence relations to terrorism–came up for discussion at today’s meeting between the two leaders.
“On bilateral issues, we had a brief discussion on trade related matters. That is important for both sides and we agreed that in a new relationship that we are building with the US where trade is expanding we need to find ways in which we can help that process to take place,” Gokhale said.
