Sanctions Busting: Refineries in India Bypass US Dollar, Pay for Iranian Oil in Rupees

Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani and Indian leader Mehendra Modi enjoying an increase in bilateral trade between the two countries.
Ever since the U.S. has embarked on its current phase of economic warfare against multiple countries, target nations have been driven to adopt evermore creative ways of bypassing the U.S. dollar system, and thus ‘busting’ punitive economic sanctions being imposed by Washington.
As a result of this U.S. economic statecraft policies, countries like Iran and India are seeing record-breaking bilateral trade results – a trend which is only set to increase in the coming years. This also indicates a further downward trend in the ubiquity of the U.S. dollar in international commodities trades, and with that, a gradual but continual decentralization of international currency – ironically resulting directly from U.S. economic statecraft policies…
Reuters reports…
NEW DELHI – India has begun paying Iran for oil in rupees, a senior bank official said on Tuesday, the first such payments since the United States imposed new sanctions against Tehran in November.
Washington gave a six-month waiver to eight countries, including India, allowing them to import some Iranian oil.
India, the world’s third biggest oil importer, wants to continue buying oil from Iran as it offers free shipping and an extended credit period, while Iran will use the rupee funds to mostly pay for imports from India.
“Today we received a good amount from some oil companies,” Charan Singh, executive director at state-owned UCO Bank told Reuters. He did not disclose the names of refiners or how much had been deposited.
New Delhi recently issued a notification exempting payments to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) for crude oil imports from steep withholding taxes, enabling refiners to clear an estimated $1.5 billion in dues.
An industry source said India’s top refiner Indian Oil Corp and Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals have made payments for Iranian oil imports. Neither was immediately available for comment.
Iran is devising payment mechanisms including barter with trading partners like India, China and Russia following a delay in the setting up of a European Union-led special purpose vehicle to facilitate trade with Tehran, its foreign minister Javad Zarif said earlier on Tuesday.
n the previous round of U.S. sanctions, India settled 45 percent of oil payments in rupees and the remainder in euros but this time it has signed deal with Iran to make all payments in rupees as New Delhi wants to fix its trade balance with Tehran…
Continue this story at Reuters
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