Future refineries in India may be smaller capacity: Hardeep Singh Puri

India will look at building smaller oil refineries because of problems in acquiring land as it aims to raise its annual refining capacity to 9 million barrels per day (bpd), oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.

Oil refining capacity in India, the world’s third biggest oil importer and consumer, is at about 5.2 million bpd.

Global oil producers see India as a stable outlet for their oil as it is expected to account for a quarter of global oil demand growth by 2040.

“Refineries are high cost. We are looking at a large number of 20 million tonnes per annum, smaller ones,