01-Aug-2013
NEW DELHI—India's crude oil imports are likely to increase just a tad this financial year as the country didn't add any refining capacity for more than a year, a senior oil ministry official said Thursday.
The country is expected to import 186.06 million metric tons, or 3.73 million barrels a day, of crude oil in the fiscal year through March, the official said. That would be 0.5% more than last year's 3.71 million barrels a day.
India, one of the world's biggest refiners of crude oil, didn't commission any capacity since March 2012 due to low demand from industrial and retail consumers amid a slowdown in the domestic and global economy. The country imports more than four-fifths of the crude oil it requires.
The local economy grew 5% in the last fiscal year, its slowest pace in a decade. Wednesday, the government said the economy would expand 5.5% to 6.0% this fiscal year, but most economists expect the growth to be closer to 5%.
"You import crude to refine it. If no new refining capacity comes on stream, the import trend will be almost flat," said the official who didn't want to be named.
Citing provisional estimates of the oil ministry, the official said India's refineries will likely process 222.97 million tons, or 4.47 million barrels a day, of crude oil this fiscal year, a 1.2% increase from last year. India's demand for petroleum products is projected to be 162.03 million tons, compared with 155.42 million tons last year.
Local crude oil output is estimated to rise 3.43% to 39.2 million tons, or 787,220 barrels a day, this fiscal year.
Source:-online.wsj.com
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