Indian Refiners' June Crude Processing Stays Robust, Output Slips

India refiners' crude processing remained resilient in June, holding above pre-pandemic levels amid steady demand, while production eased with the increased availability of cheaper Russian crude, government data showed on Friday.

Throughput in June was about 4.7% lower than last month, but up over 17% year-on-year to 5.27 million barrels per day (21.58 million tonnes), the data showed.

It was also about 23% higher compared with the same period in 2020, and 6.3% higher than in June 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's a surprisingly strong result for a monsoon-season-impacted month.... Refining margins have never been this good - the role of India buying up cheap Russian barrels remains a case in point," said Viktor Katona, co-head of crude analysis at Kpler, forecasting a slight dip in July-August, to 5.2 and 5.15 million bpd following the retreat from May.

"For a more reflective reference, crude throughput in June 2019 stood at (about) 5 million bpd - at that point there was no COVID, nothing of a huge downside factor. So this just goes on to prove that Indian refining is looking strong."

Indian refiners have been snapping up exports at steep discounts to Brent and Middle East staples with Western sanctions having pushed spot prices for Russian crude to record discounts against other grades.

Moscow replaced Saudi Arabia as the second biggest oil supplier to India after Iraq for the second month in a row in June.

Fuel consumption in June in the world's No.3 oil consumer rose by 17.9% from a year earlier.

Crude oil production, meanwhile, was down 1.6% to about 600,000 barrels per day (2.44 million tonnes) in June, dipping over 4% versus the previous month.

Natural gas output rose 1.1% year on year to 2.81 billion cubic metres.

"It's the private sector that has seen the biggest discrepancy between production targets and actual output, aggravated by field incidents and well failures," Kpler's Katona said.

REFINERY PRODUCTION IN TERMS OF CRUDE THROUGHPUT (in '000 tonnes):

June-2022 June-2022 June-2021 April-June 2022 April-June 2021

Plan Actual Actual Actual Actual

IOC, Guwahati 86 92 0 276 62

IOC, Barauni 541 559 442 1,695 1,446

IOC, Gujarat 975 1,315 1,072 3,992 3,114

IOC, Haldia 690 679 606 2,098 1,927

IOC, Mathura 780 868 698 2,486 2,209

IOC, Digboi 57 61 59 181 177

IOC, Panipat 1,320 1,254 1,213 3,679 3,690

IOC, Bongaigaon 137 186 233 577 685

IOC, Paradip 1,290 1,264 1,034 3,954 3,411

BPCL, Mumbai 660 882 1,026 3,440 3,426

BPCL, Kochi 1,355 1,364 1,016 4,110 3,290

BORL, Bina 680 650 425 2,010 1,591

HPCL, Mumbai 726 852 304 2,427 464

HPCL, Visakh 533 782 481 2,382 2,044

CPCL, Manali 600 973 646 2,882 2,035

NRL, Numaligarh 237 241 193 787 640

MRPL, Mangalore 1,200 1,429 1,010 4,325 3,070

ONGC, Tatipaka 5 7 6 20 20

HMEL, Bhatinda 942 1,078 1,063 3,230 3,224

RIL, Jamnagar 2,690 2,954 2,690 9,112 8,299

RIL, SEZ 2,530 2,408 2,530 7,072 7,456

Nayara, Vadinar 1,650 1,680 1,650 5,065 4,975

TOTAL 19,681 21,575 18,397 65,798 57,256

Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas

IOC: Indian Oil Corp

BPCL: Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd

HPCL: Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd

CPCL: Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd

MRPL: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd

Reliance Industries Ltd

Please note that CPCL's CBR refinery is de-commissioned under shutdown due to limitation in meeting required product specifications with the existing configuration.

CRUDE OUTPUT ('000 tonnes):

June-2022 June-2022 June-2021

Plan Actual Actual

ONGC

Andhra Pradesh 16 16 12

Assam $ 83 81 82

Gujarat 367 370 363

Tamil Nadu 22 22 25

Offshore # 1,154 1,136 1,141

OIL

Assam, Arunachal Pradesh & 275 257 247

Rajasthan (heavy oil)

Private Operators 597 557 613

Total 2,515 2,439 2,482

Total may not tally because some numbers have been rounded.

ONGC: Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd

OIL: Oil India Ltd

$ : Includes oil output of Tripura

# : Includes oil output from Mumbai High