Indian refiners' output in July increases 11.8%

New Delhi: Indian refiners processed 11.8 per cent more crude in July from a year ago following a jump in output at a privately run refinery in western India, data showed yesterday .

Output at Essar Oil's Vadinar refinery more than doubled in July to 268,600 bpd from a year earlier, when the plant was shut for more than three weeks as new units were added to scale up capacity.

The government caps prices of widely consumed fuels such as petrol and diesel to protect the poor and ease inflationary pressures, and partly compensates state firms for their losses.

No subsidy exists for private refiners, which have increasingly turned to overseas markets for sales.

Reliance

Crude processing at Reliance Industries' Jamnagar refinery in western Gujarat state was marginally down in July at 768,230 bpd from a year earlier, and nearly 2 per cent short of its target.

Refineries in Asia's third-largest oil consumer processed 3.383 million bpd of crude last month, when margins for simple Asian refiners were at minus $0.92 a barrel.

They had processed 3.026 million bpd in July 2007, when Indian Oil Corp's Mathura refinery with a capacity of 160,000 bpd was completely shut for maintenance.

Overall, refiners' utilisation ran at 113.1 per cent of installed capacity in July, higher than 101.4 per cent a year earlier.

India plans to add 2.14 million bpd of refining capacity by 2012 to its existing 2.98 million bpd, and expects domestic demand for oil products to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 2.9 per cent to 132 million tonnes by 2012.

Capacity use at IOC's seven refineries during July was 106 per cent, the data showed.

State-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp's Mumbai plant ran at 124 per cent of capacity last month, while Bharat Petroleum Corp's Mumbai refinery operated at 106.2 per cent.