Japan's Iran crude imports drop 33.9 pct year per year in June

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Customs-cleared imports from Iran fell to 812,693 kilolitres (170,389 barrels per day), Ministry of Finance data showed on Monday.

The United States and Europe are trying to squeeze the revenues Iran makes from oil exports in order to force it to halt a nuclear program they fear will be used to make weapons, but which Tehran says is for power generation.

Japanese buyers stopped loading Iranian crude in June ahead of the EU sanctions that banned European insurers from covering tankers carrying Iranian crude anywhere in the world.

On a month-on-month basis, Japan's imports of Iranian crude in June rose 60.5 percent from 106,162 bpd in May as oil loaded in Iran before June flowed into the country.

Purchases from the Middle Eastern country for the first six months of 2012 totaled 227,573 bpd, down 33.4 percent from a year earlier.

The value of imports from Iran for the first half of the year fell 26.8 percent to 380.1 billion yen ($4.83 billion).

In June, the value of Iran imports value declined 31.2 percent to 47.3 billion yen from a year ago.

($1 = 78.6300 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Himani Sarkar)