13 Mar 2022
Indian oil and gas Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are expected to take the biggest hit due to tepid domestic demand of petroleum products, according to research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie.
“Indian PSUs are expected to be hurt the most amid tepid domestic demand, high storage level and lesser access to export markets, especially inland refineries,” Kendrick Ng, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie said in a statement.
According to Ng, refiners are reducing runs in response to lower oil products demand and weakness in refining margins and the country will process about 800,000 barrels per day of less crude in April, on a month-on-month basis, resulting in about 17 per cent decline in the utilisation rate.
State-owned upstream companies - IndianOil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum -- last week announced regulating crude throughput by 20-30 per cent in response to reduced demand.
The research agency expects the demand for petrol, aviation turbine fuel and diesel to be down 25 per cent, 33 per cent and 13 per cent in the second quarter as compared to the corresponding quarter a year ago.
“Overall, total demand is expected to decline by 871,000 barrels per day (b/d) (-17%) yoy in April. The negative impact is likely to last through Q2 2020 with most oil products returning to normal growth in the third quarter of this year except for jet fuel demand, which is expected to return to normal growth only in the first quarter of next year,” Qiaoling Chen, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie said.
leave your comment