Indian Oil Industry

Over the years India Petroleum Industry has played an influential part in triggering the speedy expansion of the country's economy by contributing 15% in the total GDP. Further to this, petroleum exports gave new dimension to foreign exchange earnings by drawing US$ 23.64 billion in the FY 2008-09.

To assist and acknowledge the expansion of the sector, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs felicitated 44 petroleum research blocks on November 2008 under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-VII).

Various Production Segments:

*Refinery production: Refinery production in context of crude oil escalated from 156.11 MT in FY 2007-08 to 160.67 MT in FY 2008-09. Indian Oil Corporation Ltd is looking forward to elevate the capacity of its Haldia refinery and Panipat refinery plants to 7.5 million tones and 15 million tones respectively in 2010.

*Natural Gas Production: The natural gas production in 2008-09 increased from the previous year's 32.40 billion cubic metres tonnes (BCM) to 32.84 BCM. In 2009 alone the Natural gas production was registered at 33,846 million cubic metres.

*Crude Oil Production: The projected production of crude oil during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-2012) is 206.76 MMT, while that of natural gas is 255.27 BCM. Cumulative production of crude oil between April-December 2009 was 25,152 MT, while cumulative production of refinery production during the same period was 119,283 MT.

India as an international refining destination

India is steadily emerging as an international destination for oil refining with investment requirements lesser by 25% - 50% as compared to its Asian counterparts. As per the analysis carried out by Deutsche Bank, India is expected to enhance its refining competence by 45% in the next 5 years. Being the fifth biggest worldwide nation in context of distillation capacity, India enjoys 3% of the international capacity share. To move ahead in making its presence felt strongly in the global market, Indian petroleum firms are planning to raise their distillation capacity from the existing 149 mtpa to 243 mtpa by FY 2011-12.

Indian petroleum retail market

Expansion of Indian petroleum retail market is triggered by the growth in automobile sales that resulted in major foreign investments. The growth is estimated to sustain and the market is likely to expand further by 20 million every year till 2030, placing India at the world map in terms of being the biggest automobile market.

Accordingly, the petroleum dealers Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and