New Delhi, April 20 With the change in status of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) refinery, diesel imports are expected to come down because availability in the domestic market will increase.
RIL recently converted the status of its first 33-million-tonne-an-annum Jamnagar refinery from an export-oriented unit to a normal refinery. This would enable the company to sell all its products in the domestic and export markets. The increase in products available locally would give public sector oil refiners the option of sourcing from RIL, instead of importing.
The Petroleum Secretary, Mr R.S. Pandey, said, “With more products available, normally it is expected that the imports will be less. Public sector companies can source from RIL. However, market mechanism will determine who will buy from whom. This will be a purely commercial decision.”
In the last financial year (2008-09), oil product sales provisionally rose 4.5 per cent to 124 million tonnes, while diesel sales was up 8.4 per cent and petrol rose 9 per cent, he said.
In March alone oil product sales rose 6.6 per cent to 11.6 million tonnes than a year-ago period, he said.
While petrol sales rose 13.2 per cent to 1.05 million tonnes in March, diesel consumption was up 8.6 per cent to 4.79 million tonnes.
Source : Business Line