India's July oil imports from Iran rose to their highest in at least five years, climbing to over 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) for the second time in five months, revised tanker arrival data obtained from trade sources show.

India, Iran's top oil client after China, shipped in about 523,000 bpd oil in July, an increase of 37 percent from June and more than double from a year ago, the data showed.

Iran used to be India's second-biggest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia until 2011, when New Delhi had to cut purchases from Tehran because of western sanctions.

India's oil imports from Iran have been consistently rising since the lifting of sanctions earlier this year. In the first four months of this fiscal year, India's imports from Iran have climbed 48 percent more than a year ago to about 420,000 bpd, the data showed.

Last month two state refiners Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum lifted oil from Tehran after a gap of years. In July, Saudi continued to be the top oil supplier to India followed by Iraq, the data shows. Venezuela remained the third-biggest oil supplier.

(Source: Reuters)