HOUSTON/NEW DELHI, April 21 (Reuters) – South America’s quickest rising oil producer has turned down the Indian authorities’s request for discounted crude oil purchases throughout commerce discussions, Guyana Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo mentioned on Thursday.

Guyana’s oil manufacturing in complete has tripled from a 12 months in the past to about 380,000 barrels of oil per day. The authorities has rights to about 12.5% of the barrels, that are marketed beneath a one-year contract reached with BP (BP.L) final November.

India and Guyana have mentioned a possible bilateral oil settlement for 2 years. The international locations have failed to achieve mutually agreed phrases for now, Jagdeo mentioned, with talks persevering with on agriculture, well being care and different areas.

“Any sale of our crude will have to be on commercial terms, not a discounted terms,” Jagdeo mentioned at a briefing. “We don’t have a proposal at this point in time (from India) to buy crude”.

Guyana has been additionally attempting to draw Indian firms to participate in its first aggressive oil public sale, which is able to supply 14 offshore blocks to highest bidders. Indian firms haven’t confirmed participation. The public sale, initially set for September final 12 months, was postponed to July.

Indian consumers have sought a reduction to compensate for top freight prices to ship its oil to the Asian nation, Jagdeo mentioned.

“Guyana crude is costly for us because of high freight. Instead of paying a high freight for their oil, we will prefer to buy oil from the Middle East and east and west Africa,” mentioned an individual aware of the Indian merchants considering. “Without concessions their crude doesn’t make business sense for us.”

India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, is anticipated to go to within the coming days to signal a memorandum of understanding between the 2 international locations, Jagdeo mentioned.

“We are transferring ahead on lots of the different areas,” Jagdeo mentioned.

Reporting by Sabrina Valle, Editing by Louise Heavens

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