Refinery throughput continues to rise in June
Millennium Post, Delhi   24-Jul-2020

Indian refineries continued to raise crude oil processing to make fuel in June, with over 8 per cent rise in throughput over the previous month, in signs of revival in economic activities after easing of lockdown restrictions.

Nearly two dozen refineries in the country, which had in April cut down operating rate to as low as 30-40 per cent after lockdown pummelled fuel demand, processed 18.72 million tonnes of crude oil into fuel in June, up from 17.27 million tonnes in the preceding month, according to latest data released by the Petroleum Ministry on Thursday.

Crude processing was, however, about 9 per cent lower than 20.5 million tonnes throughput in June 2019.Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has been steadily raising operating run-rate at its nine refineries since capacity utilisation fell to as low as 45 per cent in the first week of April. The run-rate in June was over 97 per cent of the rated capacity.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd's (HPCL) units at Mumbai and Visakh operated at 106 per cent of the capacity, the data showed.Privatisation bound Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) operated refineries at 84 per cent of the capacity. However, Reliance Industries Ltd, which operates the world's biggest oil refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, cut crude processing for the fourth straight month in June.

Its twin refineries operated at an average capacity of 83 per cent in June, down from 91.72 per cent in May. They had operated at 94.8 per cent of the capacity in April and 95.4 per cent in March.

RIL refineries processed 4.6 million tonnes of crude oil in June, down from 5.3 million tonnes in May and 15 per cent lower than crude throughput in the same month last year.

The units produced 6.07 million tonnes of petroleum products in June, down from 6.53 million tonnes in May and 6.2 million tonnes a year ago.

Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy's 20 million tonnes a year Vadinar refinery in Gujarat ran at 84.8 per cent of capacity in June, down from 91.9 per cent in May.

India's crude oil production fell 6 per cent to 2.5 million tonnes in June as Cairn-operated Rajasthan oilfields produced 15 per cent less oil.

ONGC's output was down 1.1 per cent at 1.66 million tonnes.

Fields operated by private firms produced over 16 per cent less crude oil, mostly due to lower output from Cairn-operated Rajasthan block.

Natural gas production in June dropped 12 per cent to 2.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) as shutting down of user industries forced companies such as ONGC to cut production.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp's (ONGC) output was down 9.4 per cent at 1.8 bcm.