Local refiners turned 8 per cent more crude oil into fuel in September on a year-on-year basis. Higher capacity utilisation by the refiners due to rise in consumption was cited as the reason for this, according to the provisional data released by the Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas.
The data included estimated crude processing in August and September by Reliance Industries’ second refinery at Jamnagar, which is an export-focused plant. Reliance’s two refineries at Jamnagar account for about 30 per cent of the country’s refining capacity.
The country’s refining capacity has increased by 68.87 per cent from 2004-05 to 215 million tonne per annum as on April 1, 2013. It is further projected to go up to 264.966 million tonnes by 2015-16. This meant higher crude oil imports.
Domestic refiners (17 public sector, 2 joint venture, 3 private sector) together imported 16.3 million of crude oil in September, up from 15.236 million tonne in the same month last fiscal.
Consumption of petroleum products in the domestic market was higher by 2 per cent in September annually to 11.897 million tonne (11.619 million tonne), according to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell.
Crude oil production during the month was up 0.6 per cent, while domestic natural gas production continued its declining trend with output falling 14.1 per cent year-on-year.