TEHRAN – Four major Asian buyers of Iranian crude imported a total of 1.70 million barrels per day (bpd) from Iran in January, the highest volume since October, the data released by Reuters showed.

According to the government and ship-tracking data, imports of Iranian crude oil by China, India, Japan and South Korea last month rose 3.3 percent from January 2017 as a jump in purchases by top buyer China offset lower volumes in three other countries.

The major Asian customers of Iranian crude shipped in 1.67 million bpd of oil from the country on average during 2017.

China's January imports of Iranian crude jumped 85.9 percent from the previous year to 748,715 bpd, the largest since last September and following three straight months of year-on-year declines. The country's overall crude imports jumped by about a fifth in January.

Meanwhile, India's imports from Iran declined 10.7 percent to 495,200 bpd in January, according to the data.

Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said in mid-February that Indian refiners - state-owned and private - would buy about 500,000 bpd of Iranian oil in 2018/19.

Imports into Japan were down 2.9 percent from a year earlier at 203,259 bpd, monthly data from the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed on Wednesday.

EF/MA