India's Essar Oil imported 10.2% more crude in October as the private refiner boosted its overall purchases ahead of the start of its Vadinar Refinery after a month-long maintenance, according to tanker arrival data obtained from sources and assessed by Thomson Reuters Oil Analytics. Essar shipped in about 134,400 barrels of oil per day from Iran in October, a decline of about 19% from a year ago, the data showed, Reuters reported. It received about 109,200 bpd from Iran in January-October 2015, a decline of about 10.3% from a year earlier, the data showed, as the average for the first half was dragged down by Indian refiners skipping purchases in March to meet the last fiscal year's target of 220,000 bpd. However, in April-October, the first seven months of this fiscal year, Essar's import of Iranian oil surged by 32.7% to 136,600 bpd, the data showed. In the first seven months of the fiscal year, running from April through October, India's oil imports from Iran jumped 5.6% to 249,100 bpd as refiners raised purchases after the July deal that may mean the removal of sanctions next year.
