Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) – the country’s biggest shipping company – says it will resume sailing to Iran this month after a hiatus of about four years.

The company says it will accordingly use one of its Suezmax-sized tankers to ship an oil cargo for state-refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) from Iran.

"It is not yet decided ... which SCI-owned vessel is going to Iran," said SCI Chairman B.B. Sinha. 

The company had stopped sailing to Iran in 2012 when the US-led sanctions against Iran prevented it from obtaining insurance cover for oil and other shipments.

SCI had contracts with HPCL, Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd to ship crude from Iran, the Economic Times of India has quoted him as saying.

HPCL will resume Iranian oil imports from July after three years because insurance was now available for plants processing Iranian oil, its head of refineries B.K. Namdeo said.

Similarly, BPCL's head of refineries, B.K. Datta, confirmed it also planned to import an oil cargo from Iran this month, although it would use the Panama-flagged tanker "Vito".

India's Iranian oil imports are set to hit a seven-year high in the year from April 1, with refiners buying at least 400,000 barrels per day, added the Economic Times of India. 

Following the lifting in January of some western sanctions, International Group of Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Clubs - which generally insure the tanker market - have been able to obtain "fall-back cover" from non-US markets.

"The level of cover provided by the fall-back cover has been recently raised to 100 million euros ($111.30 million), which is fairly high and provides substantial levels of protection," the Economic Times of India has further quoted Sinha as saying.