Iran's trading partners are looking for ways to avoid being hit by US sanctions on Iranian oil transactions that take effect mid-year, with Turkey looking for other suppliers, India exploring options and smaller Asian countries arguing their imports from Tehran are tiny.
Turkey, the fifth-largest buyer of Iranian oil, has committed to reduce its crude from Tehran by 10 percent and the country's only refiner, Tupras, a unit of Koc Holding, has pledged to cut imports by 20 percent.
"The bottom line is that there are alternative suppliers. We are not buying at a subsidised price. We are buying at an international price," Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told reporters on the sidelines of the Group of 20 finance ministers meetings in Washington last week.
"We obviously comply with United Nations sanctions. With US sanctions, of course now we are looking at basically options out there in terms of oil. It's premature but something is being worked out," he said.
India, the second largest buyer of Iranian crude, said it was exploring options. "We are having some problems on how to fund the (oil) import because we have to pay back the oil import," India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told Reuters on the sidelines of the G20 meetings.
"That's one of the problems but we are exploring different possibilities," he said. The US penalties are designed to crimp Tehran's oil revenues by stopping financial institutions from conducting oil transactions with Iran's central bank, which handles most of the country's oil payments. If countries do not significantly reduce their Iranian oil imports by mid-year, they could see their banks blocked from US markets. Eleven countries, including Japan, have already won a reprieve from the US law after reducing Iranian oil consumption. China, the No 1 consumer of Iranian crude, is waiting to hear from the Obama administration on whether it will be exempt.