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Tehran: The world's fourth-largest oil exporter Iran plans to boost shipments to fast-growing energy consumers China and India and may reduce the flow to other buyers, a top Iranian oil official said on Thursday.
State-run companies of Asian economies keen to secure future energy supplies are less susceptible to US pressure to stay out of the Islamic Republic and are taking a bigger role in its energy sector.
"China and India are growing economies. It is obvious to everybody they need more energy," Ali Asghar Arshi, executive director for international affairs at Iran's state oil firm NIOC, told Reuters in an interview in Tehran.
"We are opening offices in Mumbai and Beijing to focus on deals to sell more crude... If we increase volumes to them we will reduce quantities to some others and have less for spot sales."
Arshi declined to say how much more crude Iran aimed to sell to India and China or which countries might receive less. Iran ships about 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of its 2.5 million bpd crude exports to China and about 380,000 bpd to India.
NIOC aims to seal a deal to boost crude sales to Indian refiner Reliance in September, Arshi said. Reliance will run the crude at the giant new 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) Jamnagar refinery, scheduled to start operations later this year.
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