Paid $150 mn to Iran through Turkey route: HPCL

State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) today said it had paid $150 million to Iran using a newly-established conduit through Turkey and would clear the remaining oil dues, totalling over $1 billion, by next month.

"Our outstanding [dues] towards Iran is $1.014 billion after payment of $150 million earlier this month," HPCL Director (Finance) B Mukherjee told reporters here.

HPCL, which buys 3.35 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran a year, will pay another $45 million on August 16.

"It [the new conduit] is working well. There is no reason for us to think otherwise," he said, "We hope to pay the remaining by next month."

The outstanding dues had accumulated after the Reserve Bank of India last December scrapped a long standing mechanism of paying for Iranian oil through a clearing house system run by regional central banks last December, a move welcomed by the US.

Iran, which supplies some 12% of nation's oil needs, had in June-end threatened to stop oil shipments to India from August unless the past dues totalling $5 billion were cleared.

HPCL, the third-biggest bigger of Iranian crude after Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) and Essar Oil, had bought an additional cargo from Saudi Arabia to make up for shortfall from Iran in August.

It, however, is not expecting any of those in September and hopes to get the two contracted cargo from Iran. "We have contracted any additional supplies from Saudi Arabia," he said.

Earlier this week, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) said it paid 73 million euros and would pay the remaining 388 million euros by month-end.

IOC is the smallest among the four Indian refiners who buy crude oil from Iran. It buys 1.5 million tonne or 30,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Iran.

Of this, IOC has received 0.871 million tonne between April and July and there was no cargo scheduled for arrival in August. "We have one cargo of about 120,000 tonne coming in September, which is on schedule," IOC Director (Finance) PK Goyal had said.

MRPL and Essar Oil -- top two buyers of Iranian crude in India-- last week made a payment of 1 billion euro through a Turkish state-owned bank, paving the way for resumption of supplies.