NEW DELHI - India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has cut its annual oil import deal with Saudi Aramco by about 22 percent to 70,000 barrels per day (bpd), two company sources said.

MRPL is instead looking to step up crude purchases from Iran, said the sources, declining to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

"They were rigid in their approach and were asking us to offer bank guarantees for oil purchases," said one of the sources.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma and Promit Mukherjee in NEW DELHI; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) ((Krishna.Das@tr.com; +91-98711-18314, +91 11 4954 8026; Reuters Messaging: Krishna.Das.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net, Twitter: https://twitter.com/krishnadas56))