Once a favorite among refiners, India rethinks oil sourcing strategy from Iran in Freight News 20/06/2026 Indian refiners are reassessing their strategy to Iranian crude purchases ahead of potential sanctions relief, but the barrels will face intense competition in a market that has successfully diversified away from Iran over the past few years, industry sources and analysts said June 18. While Iranian oil’s return to India — expected once a US-Iran peace deal is finalized and sanctions are waived — will provide strategic optionality and supply security, the crude will need to compete on price, logistics and payment terms rather than automatically reclaiming its pre-2018 market position, they said. “India will buy Iranian crude again if sanctions are removed, but Iran is returning to a very different market from the one it left in 2018,” B. Anand, industry expert and former CEO of Nayara Energy, told Platts, part of S&P Global Energy. “A return to pre-sanctions import levels should not be viewed as automatic. Iran will have to compete for market share rather than simply reclaim it.” Before the sanctions, Iranian crudes were a strategic component of India’s crude basket due to quality, proximity, flexible loadings and favorable terms, but since then, Russian, US, Middle Eastern and Latin American barrels have become entrenched in Indian refiners’ crude slates and procurement strategies, he said. “The question is no longer whether India will buy Iranian crude again; it is what Iran will have to offer to displace barrels that have successfully filled the void over the last seven years,” said Anand, who has experience in buying Iranian oil in his earlier role, when those volumes were not under sanctions. Market dynamics shift The US reimposed sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports in November 2018, though it initially granted 180-day waivers to China and several other buyers. India bought 518,000 b/d of Iranian oil in 2018, which slowed to 268,000 b/d between Janua