Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) today said it can buy up to 1.5 million tonnes of crude oil a year from Cairn India from the latter's Rajasthan fields.
"Subject to commercial terms, we can take up to 1.5 million tonnes of Rajasthan crude (oil)," IOC Director Refineries BN Bankapur said.
IOC's Koyali refinery in Gujarat can take 0.5-0.6 million tonnes of crude oil while its Panipat refinery in Haryana can take 0.9-1 million tonnes, he said.
Cairn plans to produce 1,75,000 barrels per day (8.75 million tonnes a year) of crude from the Rajasthan fields by 2011.
Yesterday, the Rajasthan government gave Cairn India the go ahead for laying a pipeline to transport crude oil from its Mangala fields after the BSE-listed firm agreed to invoice oil sales in the state rather than at the delivery point in Gujarat.
Cairn India will begin crude oil production from its Mangala field in Rajasthan in the July-September quarter of 2009.
The Mangala field is expected to produce 30,000 barrels of oil a day during July-September 2009.
Production is then expected to ramp up to 80,000 bpd (barrels per day) by the end of 2009 before reaching a plateau of 1,25,000 bpd during H1 of 2010, Cairn India officials had earlier said, adding the completion of the 600-km insulated and heated pipeline to refineries on the Gujarat coast is on schedule for Q4 of 2009.
