December 9, 2011. India's HPCL is in talks to buy crude oil from Syria. There are no disruptions in supplies from Iran. Sanctions aimed at crude oil exports have warded off normal buyers of Syrian crude, which mainly flowed to Europe, causing storage tanks to brim and forcing cuts. Syria produced around 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) before the unrest of which about a third was exported. HPCL expects to process 16 million tonnes of crude in the current fiscal year ending in March 2012 and the state-run refiner plans to invest 450 billion rupees ($8.69 billion) until 2016/2017 in strengthening refining capacities. HPCL operates a 130,000 bareels per day (bpd) refinery at Mumbai on the west coast and a 166,000 bpd at Visakhapatnam on the east coast.