India's crude oil output down 1.03% to 2.5 MMT in December, imports rise 1.1% YoY: PPAC

livemint.com:

Oil India Limited (OIL) and and private sector producers contributed 0.3 MMT and 0.6 MMT, data released by the Oil Ministry showed. Crude oil imports increased by 1.1 per cent and 0.4 per cent during December 2023 and April-December 2023 respectively, compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. The net import bill for oil and gas was $10.3 billion in December 2023 compared to $10.2 billion in December 2022, according to PPAC.

Also Read: ‘Oil markets well supplied’, says IEA as it raises 2024 global demand forecast; projects lower than OPEC Out of this, crude oil imports constitutes $11.4 billion, liquified natural gas (LNG) imports $1.1 billion and the exports were $4.2 billion during December 2023, the data showed. The Indian basket crude price averaged $77.42/bbl during December 2023 compared to $83.46/bbl during November 2023 and $78.10 /bb during December 2022. The price of Brent Crude averaged $77.91/bb during December 2023 compared to $83.18/bbl during November 2023 and $81.12/bbl during December 2022.

The production of petroleum products was 24.5 MMT during November 2023 which is four per cent higher than December 2022. Out of above 24.5 MMT, 24.2 MMT was from refinery production and 0.3 MMT was from fractionator. There was a growth of 4.9 per cent in production of petroleum products in April December FY 2023 – 24 compared to same period of FY 2022 – 23.

Meanwhile, India's fuel consumption rose to a seven-month high in December to about 20.054 million metric tons, according to PPAC data. Th total consumption, a proxy for oil demand, in December rose by 6.2 per cent from 18.89 million tons in November. It was up around 2.6 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier.