INDIA SEEKS BOOST IN SAUDI ARABIA CRUDE OIL SUPPLY
Rakesh Sharma and Santanu Choudhury
India has asked Saudi Arabia, its largest crude oil supplier, to augment daily shipments by up to 100,000 bbl each year over the next few years to meet expanding refining capacities at home, Oil Minister Jaipal Reddy said Thursday. Saudi Arabia exported 547,236 bpd to India last fiscal year.
Reddy was speaking to reporters after meeting Saudi Arabia’s assistant minister for petroleum affairs, Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz.
“The [Saudi] minister assured us that our request will be positively looked into,” Reddy said.
Saudi Arabia exported 547,236 bpd to India in the financial year that ended March 31, 2011, comprising nearly 17% of the South Asian nation’s total crude oil imports.
India’s plan to boost crude imports from Saudi Arabia come as Indian Oil, Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Essar Oil seek to expand their capacities as a growing economy drives demand for fuel products.
Saudi minister Abdulaziz said Indian companies will approach state-run Saudi Aramco with their additional crude demand and companies of the two countries will “work it out on a commercial basis.”
The world’s largest crude oil exporter is producing 9.8 million bpd of crude and has spare capacity of 2.5 million bpd, he said, adding that the oil markets were currently well-supplied and there was “no need to be concerned.”
Global crude markets have been rattled with fears of supply disruptions owing to US and European Union sanctions on Iran on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Iran is India’s second-largest supplier after Saudi Arabia.
Reddy said India’s plans to raise imports from Saudi Arabia isn’t connected with any development related to Iran.
“Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is purely bilateral. It is our single-biggest supplier. We have been seeking to increase supply every year. It’s the same this year,” Reddy said. “It has no relationship to our ties with any other country, including Iran.”
He said India’s imports from Iran in the next financial year will be almost unchanged from this year. He didn’t say how much India will import this year.
India sourced 369,980 bpd of crude from Iran in the year ended March 31, 2011.
(Source: Hydrocarbon Processing Informer, a petroleum industry magazine, February 23, 2012)
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