India's Essar Oil, the top Indian buyer of Iranian crude, imported 49.7 percent more Iranian oil in May compared with a year ago, according to tanker arrival data obtained from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.

Essar shipped in about 187,300 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran last month, an increase of about 4.6 percent from April, the data showed.

Essar's oil imports from Iran averaged at about 149,500 bpd in the first five months of 2016 compared with 76,000 bpd of a year ago, when the private refiner had to cut imports under pressure from western sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, the data showed.

Iran's share in overall imports by Essar Oil in the January-May period rose to 41 percent from about 23 percent in the year-ago period.

(Source: Reuters)