Iran has offered to help India meet its energy needs by relaunching the rupee-rial trade for export of oil and gas, said Iranian ambassador to India Ali Chegeni.

Chegeni said if both the countries resume rupee-rial trade, bilateral trade can touch $30 billion.

Iran used to be India’s second largest oil supplier but New Delhi had to halt imports after the former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions on its oil exports.

“Iran is ready to meet India’s energy security needs by launching rupee-rial trade for export of oil and gas,” Chegeni was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the MVIRDC World Trade Center, here over the weekend.

He further said “a rupee-rial trade mechanism can help companies from both the countries deal with each other directly and avoid third-party intermediation costs”.

It can be noted that New Delhi and Tehran had a barter-like mechanism for trade settlement, wherein Indian oil refiners were paying in rupees to a local Iranian bank and the funds were used by Tehran to pay for imports from India.

This pushed Iran to become the largest source market for crude for India, unseating Saudi Arabia which used to be the largest supplier.