The country’s crude import bill decreased significantly to $87.1 billion in the April to November period from $113.4 billion in the same period last fiscal even as the import volume remained largely unchanged, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed.
This is primarily due to the large discounts offered by Russia at the beginning of the year, the latest predominant supplier of crude oil to India. However, these discounts which had earlier exceeded $30 a barrel are now seen narrowing to $5-6 per barrel, according to analysts.
India imported 153.2 million tonne crude in the first eight months of the current financial year, almost same as 152.6 million tonne in the corresponding period a year ago.
The crude oil imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), however, decreased to 48.1% of the total imports during April-November compared with 62.6% during April-November in FY23, as per the report.
Crude oil prices have come down to the range of $75-80 a barrel after touching their highest in late September as the market remains skeptical about demand recovery from the world’s top consumers. However, experts believe that prices will bounce back to $85-90 a barrel.
The production of crude oil in the country remained stagnant at 19.6 million tonne during the period against the target of achieving 20.1 million tonne production. Of this, Oil and Natural Gas (ONGC) output fell marginally to 12.1 million tonne from 12.4 million tonne last year, while Oil India was able to achieve its target production of 2.2 million tonne against 2.1 million tonne in April-November 2022.
India’s dependency on crude oil imports has grown to 87.9% in the first eight months of the financial year 2023-24 from 86.9% in April to November period last fiscal, primarily on increased consumption of the petroleum products even as the production remains stagnant.
The country’s consumption of petroleum products in April-November rose to 152.3 million tonne, up 4.9% from 145.1 million tonne in the same period a year ago.
Moreover, Indian oil refineries processed 172.0 million tonne of crude till November, surpassing the target of 166.7 million tonne. The refineries had processed 166.3 million tonne of crude during April-November 2022.
Of the total crude oil processed, the share of Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum rose to 25.6 million tonne and 23.4 million tonne from 24.2 million tonne and 20.8 MT in the corresponding period last year, respectively.
Indian Oil processed 48.5 million tonne crude till last month against 47.1 million tonne in the same period a year ago.
