Indian Oil sells 72 million tonnes of petroleum products in 2015-16

Indian Oil Corporation sold a total of 72.651 million tonnes of petroleum products in 2015-16, leading the market in the core product categories of petrol, diesel and LPG.

Reflecting the changing consumer trends as passenger vehicle buyers turn apprehensive of diesel -engined vehicles in view of the diesel ban in Delhi-NCR and, more recently, in Kerala, Indian OIl recorded a year-on-year growth of 13.5% in MS (petrol) and 3.8% growth in HSD (diesel) sales.

Announcing the company’s financial results for 2015-16 in New Delhi on May 27, the company’s chairman B Ashok said Indian Oil’s refineries clocked a throughput of 56.2 million tonnes with 103.7% capacity utilisation while and cross-country network of pipelines registered the highest ever throughput of 79.8 million tonnes in the year.

It also posted the highest ever sales of petrochemicals at 2.538 million tonnes in 2015-16, as against 2.477 million tonnes in the previous year. Sale of natural gas, at 1.929 million tonnes, saw growth of 6.9% over the previous year.

The highlight of the year was the commissioning of Indian Oil's 11th and India's most modern refinery at Paradip. 

Network expansion
During 2015-16, Indian Oil expanded its marketing infrastructure and retail network, backed by enhanced refining and pipeline throughput capacities. 

Besides maintaining about 6,500 dedicated facilities for bulk customers like the defence services, the railways and state transport undertakings, Indian Oil currently operates over 25,000 fuel stations across the country. About 1,000 fuel stations were added to the retail network in 2015-16 while XtraPremium branded petrol was re-launched at over 2,600 fuel stations and clocked a sales volume of 205 TMT.

Automation of over 1,700 Indian Oil fuel stations was completed during the year, taking their cumulative number to over 9,400; with this, Indian Oil fuel stations in 55 cities are now fully automated. Also, about 4,200 fuel stations switched over to use of solar energy for daily operations, which together is equivalent to about 15 MW of conventional electrical power.

Refineries and pipelines
Indian Oil refineries (excluding the Paradip Refinery which began commercial production from March 1, 2016) together achieved thire highest ever crude oil throughput of 56.2 million tonnes in 2015-16, with a capacity utilisation of 103.7% and the best-ever combined distillate yield of 80.6 wt%. 

With the commissioning of Paradip Refinery during the year, the Corporation’s refining capacity has risen to 69.2 million tonnes per annum and the group refining capacity to 80.7 million tonnes per annum. Set up at a cost of Rs 34,555 crore, it is the most modern refinery in the country, with a complexity factor of 12.2 based on Nelson Index, and is configured to process high-sulphur heavy crude oils with major secondary processing units in place for quality up-gradation of products.

The company says it has continued its efforts to widen its crude oil basket and tie-up new supply sources to de-risk supply. Eight new grades of crude oil were processed in its refineries for the first time during the year. The Corporation has over the years built up capabilities to process 174 grades of crude oil from over 40 different sources across geographies. 

Indian Oil, which manages one of the world's largest oil pipeline networks, recorded the highest-ever throughput of 79.8 million tonnes during 2015-16, which was about 5.5% more than the previous year.

About 525km of additional pipeline length was added during the year. Projects currently under implementation would further increase the length of the pipeline network from 11,746km currently to about 17,000 km, and throughput capacity from 85.5 to 102 million tonnes per annum.