The United Arab Emirates knocked Nigeria into the fourth position on the rank of oil countries exporting crude oil to India, industry sources told Reuters.
According to the report, the Asian state — which was Nigeria’s key customer in 2017, saw its oil demand reach a three year low in the month under review.
The reason for the decline is blamed on refinery shutdowns and slowing oil demand.
“Lower imports were largely due to refinery turnarounds as refiners have to supply Euro VI fuels in the country from an April 1 deadline.
“Heavy rains and slower industrial and construction work drain down the demand for refined fuels,” an analyst with Refinitiv, Ehsan Ul Haq, said.
Based on data found in the report, India imported a daily average of 3.02m barrels.
This is the first time the state of over one billion persons is importing less than 4m barrels of oil daily since 2016.
The data showed in the publication indicates that September’s imports are 18.7 per cent lower than in August and down 8.4 per cent from the same period last year.
“Due to weakening fuel demand there was an inventory build-up of refined products, so we had to cut crude processing and restrict imports,” an official at one of the refining facilities explained.
Despite the attacks on its oil facilities, Saudi Arabia was the largest petroleum exporter to Asia’s third largest economy.
Iraq was pushed to second place by the more powerful oil broker.
Angola was fifth behind Nigeria.
