OPEC’s second largest producer  Iran sells large volumes of oil to China, India, South Korea, Japan and Italy. But Turkey, South Africa and Sri Lanka rely most heavily on Iranian oil as a percentage of imports.

U.S. sanctions already forbid imports of Iranian oil. France is pressing the European Union to consider a ban on Iranian oil to discourage Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Iran produces about 3.5 million barrels a day of crude with another 500,000 bpd of condensate, exporting about 2.6 million bpd of which 50,000 bpd is refined products, the International

Energy Agency estimates.

The top ten buyers of Iranian crude are as follows. Data is for the second quarter 2011 from the IEA with the exception of China, India and Sri Lanka which are not IEA members. Data for

those countries is for first half 2011 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Country          Imports k/bpd    Percent Imports

1. China         543,000          10

2. India         341,000          11

3. Japan         251,000          5.9

4. Italy         249,000          13.3

5. South Korea   239,000          7.4

6. Turkey        217,000          30.6

7. Spain         149,000          9.6

8. Greece        111,000          34.7

9. South Africa  98,000           25

10.France        78,000           4.4

In addition Sri Lanka imported 39,000 bpd in the first half of the year. It is completely reliant on  Iranian oil.