Essar Oil, the top Indian buyer of Iranian crude, imported about 43.2 percent more oil from Iran in July 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 186,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran last month, an increase of about 4.4 percent from June, the data showed.

Essar's oil imports from Iran averaged about 158,800 bpd in the first seven months of 2016 compared with 103,700 bpd in the previous year, 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-July period rose to about 44 percent from about 30 percent in the year-ago period.

(Source: Reuters)