India refinery runs increase 9.2% in November
By RAKESH SHARMA
India's refinery runs in November rose a sharp 9.2% from October as Essar Oil resumed normal operations at a 14 million ton refinery after a 35-day shutdown.
Crude throughput at the country's 19 refineries rose to 14.42 million metric tons in November, or 3.52 million bpd, from 13.20 million tons, or 3.23 million bpd, in the previous month, showed data released by the federal oil ministry Thursday.
The refinery runs topped the government's target of 13.71 million tons, or 3.35 million bpd. Crude throughput was also up 11.2% from 3.17 million bpd in November 2010.
The numbers are based on output at India's 19 refineries, but they don't include output at the second of Reliance Industries’ two refineries in Jamnagar in Gujarat state, which processes 580,000 bpd of crude.
Output at Reliance's other 660,000 bpd refinery in the same complex in November was 718,340 bpd, almost flat compared with October.
Essar, India's second-largest private refiner by capacity, began the shutdown of its Vadinar refinery in western Gujarat state on Sept 18 for a revamp of the crude distillation unit, the fluidized catalytic cracking unit and the sulphur recovery unit for routine maintenance and a tie-in of new units for expansion.
Essar, in a statement to stock exchanges, said on Oct. 24 that it had completed the shutdown of the 280,000 bpd refinery as scheduled.
Because of the restart, Essar's refinery throughput surged to 1.27 million tons in November from 262,700 tons in October.
Crude runs at Indian Oil Corp., India's largest refiner by capacity, rose 2.7% on month to 1.14 million bpd from 1.11 million bpd in October.
Dow Jones Newswires
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