India is now the largest petroleum products exporter in Asia, surpassing South Korea
India is top exporter of petro products in Asia
RIL's Jamnagar, Essar's Vadinar refineries help overtake Korea.
.Mumbai, Aug 26 :::: India is now the largest petroleum products exporter in Asia, surpassing South Korea. According to the data compiled by oil and metal information provider Platts, India's gross exports currently average 1 million barrels a day, inching past South Korea which exports 0.9 million barrels a day. With the commissioning of a new refinery by Reliance Industries at Jamnagar and Essar Oil increasing refinery output at Vadinar, India overtook South Korea by mid-2009 and has since then consistently maintained the lead position.
India's average petroleum products export grew from 0.77 million barrels a day in January 2009 to one million barrels a day in August 2009. In the current year, the average oil products export from India stands at 1.07 million while South Korea exports average 0.88 million. In fact, India's refining capacity at 3.69 million barrels a day is the third largest in Asia after China and Japan, which have a refining capacity of 9.6 million bpd and 4.64 bpd respectively. Platts' compilation is based on the data from individual countries.
“Both Reliance Industries' Jamnagar and Essar's Vadinar refineries contribute more than 90 per cent of the petroleum products exports while the rest is by public sector oil companies,” said Ms Vandana Hari, Asia Editorial Director, Platts. “Public sector companies, which are obliged to serve the domestic market adding refinery capacity, will help private players to free up more capacity for exports,” she said. According to her, petroleum products exports from India holds great potential as both RIL and Essar have high complexity refineries which make products that meet Euro IV and Euro V standards. Europe, the US and Africa are identified major markets for Indian refiners.
Growing demand ::: The growing overseas demand for petroleum products from India is reflected in export volume growth of Reliance and Essar. RIL exported 32.8 million tonnes of refined products last fiscal against about 22.6 million tonnes for the previous period, fetching revenue of $20.9 billion (Rs 1,10,176 crore). RIL's export volume grew by 45 per cent last fiscal while it grew 82 per cent last quarter to 9.5 million tonnes. The new Reliance Petroleum refinery in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Jamnagar, which is designed to be export-oriented, is estimated to be exporting more than 80 per cent of its total output. Essar's Vadinar refinery has a total current throughput capacity of 14 million tonnes a year. Of the total production, about 30 per cent is exported while more than sixty per cent of refined products are sold to public sector oil marketing companies
By….…..Manu P. Toms……....from the pages of THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE newspaper
