The Hindu Business Line : Crude oil production in Jan drops 8%

New Delhi, March 5 The domestic crude oil production fell by 8 per cent in January and natural gas output dropped by 4 per cent. The refineries output also fell by 2.6 per cent with fall in demand.

The drop in crude oil production was due to the delay in production in some of the oil projects. There was also a significant dip in output from public as well as private/joint venture exploration companies.

Exploration companies like ONGC produced 2.66 million tonnes (mt) of crude oil in the month under review down from 2.89 mt in the corresponding month last year, a data released by Petroleum Ministry showed.

Crude oil production from ONGC’s Mumbai High fields in January dipped by 6.2 per cent to 1.43 mt (1.52 mt). The Mumbai High fields account for more than half of country’s oil production.

Natural gas

Natural gas output declined to 2.59 billion cubic metres (2.69 billion cubic metres), it said. The target of gas production could not be achieved as production from Reliance Industries Ltd was yet to start.

For January, the domestic refineries output fell by 2.6 per cent, as demand for oil product also saw a decline. Refinery throughput fell to 13.318 mt (13.67 mt).

Output from RIL’s Jamnagar refinery fell by 12.1 per cent to 2.827 mt (3.217 mt), while production of oil products at Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd’s Kochi refinery dropped 35 per cent to 4,76,000 tonnes. Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (seven refineries) saw 5.3 per cent drop in crude processing to 4.04 mt.

The refineries operated at 105.9 per cent of their installed capacity, with Reliance operating its Jamnagar unit at 103.7 per cent while Essar running at 128.1 per cent installed capacity.

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