Indian refineries produced 2.6 per cent less fuel in January, the sharpest fall seen in four years, while crude oil output fell 8 per cent.
The state and private refiners turned 13.31 million tons of crude oil into fuel in January compared to 13.67 million tons a year ago, according to the latest data released by Oil Ministry here today.
Indian Oil Corp saw 5.3 per cent dip in crude processing to 4.04 million tons while Reliance Industries reported a 12.1 per cent fall in production at 2.82 million tons.
Public sector refineries saw a fall of 9.34 million tons in output from 9.84 million tons a year ago, mostly on account of a strike by company executives halted work on many plants.
Essar Oil, however, almost doubled its production to 1.14 million tons from 608,000 tons in January 2008.
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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The production of crude oil fell 8.1 per cent to 2.66 million tons with strike impacting the output from fields like Mumbai High that saw a 6.2 per cent fall at 1.42 million tonnes.
Natural gas production also dropped 4 per cent, a 2.58 billion cubic meters and was lower than the planned 3.75 bcm as Reliance could not start output from its eastern offshore fields.