Ind-Ra: Domestic Natural Gas Prices Hiked by 6% for April-September 2018

India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has published the March edition of its credit news digest on India's oil and gas sector. The report highlights the trends in the oil & gas sector with a focus on domestic production, import, consumption, refining and gross under-recovery, regulatory changes and the recent rating actions.

Domestic natural gas price has been raised by around 5.9% to USD3.06/mmbtu for April-September 2018. Prior to this, the gas price was raised by around 17% to USD2.89/mmbtu for October 2017-March 2018 after it was revised downward five times consecutively since the implementation of the domestic gas pricing formula in October 2014. The increase in gas prices is likely to impact fertiliser, power and city gas distribution entities which are the primary consumers of natural gas.

 

India's crude oil production decreased 2.4% yoy during February 2018. Production volume of Oil India Limited increased marginally by 0.1%, while it declined by 3.3% and 1.1% for Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited and fields under production sharing contracts, respectively, during February 2018, on a yoy basis. The crude oil import volume increased 6.5% yoy during February 2018. India's import dependency of crude oil had been around 82.8% during April 2017 - February 2018. Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell estimates crude import of 219 million tonnes (mt) in FY18 (FY17: 214mt).

Refining throughput in February 2018 was 20.1mt, which was 5.4% yoy higher. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited's Mumbai refinery processed a higher volume, aiding the overall increase in throughput volume. India's petroleum products output was higher by 7.8% yoy to 20.5mt during February 2018. On a cumulative basis, the production was 4.8% yoy higher during April 2017 - February 2018.

Natural gas production during February 2018 was 1.5% yoy lower. The production volume grew for Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited (higher 1.5% yoy), whereas for Oil India Limited and 'from private/joint venture fields' it declined yoy (negative 7.2% and negative 9.4% yoy, respectively) during February 2018. Natural gas consumption increased by 9.3% yoy during February 2018. The increase in consumption was on account of increased domestic demand and a 6.1% yoy increase in imports during April 2017 - February 2018.

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