Reliance May oil imports down 13.2%

Reliance Industries Ltd, owner of the world's biggest refining complex, imported 13.2 per cent less oil in May compared with a year earlier, as it shut a crude unit at its 580,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery for three weeks, according to tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.

Reliance, which has a diversified crude slate and shifts purchases to maximise revenue, bought 1.15 million bpd last month, a decline of 4.5 per cent from April.

Last month, Reliance received about 98,700 bpd oil and condensate from Iran after skipping purchases from Tehran in the previous month. The Indian conglomerate in March resumed purchases from Tehran after a six-year gap. Reliance is looking for long-term supplies from Iran.

 

The share of Latin American and African oil in Reliance's overall imports declined in the first five months of 2016, as the company shifted away from dated-Brent linked oil to Middle Eastern grades, the data showed.

The share of Middle Eastern crude in Reliance's overall imports rose to 59 per cent in January-May 2016 from about 43 per cent a year ago, the data showed.

During the same period, African grades accounted for about 5 per cent of the crude purchased, compared with about 13 per cent a year earlier, while the share of Latin American oil slipped to about 33 per cent from 43 per cent.

Reliance's two advanced refineries in the western India state of Gujarat can together process 1.2 million bpd of oil, or about 26 per cent of India's overall capacity.