Crude oil imports may grow 4.5% in 2004-05

The petroleum ministry has sketched a rather dismal picture of oil consumption for the current financial year. According to the preliminary estimate made by it, India's crude oil imports will grow a mere 4.5 per cent during the current fiscal, against 10 per cent in 2003-04.

The ministry has estimated that crude oil imports will go up from 89.77 million tonnes in 2003-04 to around 94 million tonnes this year. It is of the opinion that a large part of the increased imports will be processed and exported as products.

Only a small part of this increase will account for an increase in the domestic consumption of petroleum products.

Thanks to excessive refining capacity in the country, product imports during 2004-05 are expected to go down 18 per cent from 7.33 million tonnes in 2003-04 to around 6 million tonnes. Last year, product imports had gone down 0.7 per cent over 2002-03.

Petroleum product exports during 2004-05 are expected to grow around 2.5 per cent from 13.66 million tonnes to a little more than 14 million tonnes. In 2003-04, these exports had grown around 40 per cent.

Although the ministry has not yet finalised the consumption estimates of individual products, it is hopeful that the use of diesel, an indicator of economic activity in the country and which was in the negative territory during most of 2003-04, will show an impressive growth during the current fiscal.

This prediction is based on the fact that the government has banned the import of kerosene, most of which was being used for the adulteration of diesel.

India consumed 33.75 million tonnes of diesel in April 2003-February 2004, against 33.56 million tonnes in the corresponding period of the previous year.

On the other hand, kerosene demand slipped 1.7 per cent in the first 11 months of 2003-04 to 9.4 million tonnes from 9.56 million tonnes in the previous year because of the increased supply of LPG for cooking purposes and a corresponding cut in kerosene allocation to states.

LPG consumption jumped 11.2 per cent in April 2003-February 2004 to 8.47 million tonnes, against 7.62 million tonnes in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Petrol consumption registered a 3.9 per cent growth to 7.20 million tonnes, against 6.93 million tonnes in the corresponding period of the previous year.