NEW DELHI : India’s largest refiner, Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOC), has slashed its refining capacity by 25% to 30%, following a sharp drop in India’s petroleum product demand because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Transportation demand has come down with citizens cooped indoors, though there has been an increase in the demand for domestic cooking gas against the backdrop of the three-week nationwide lockdown in the world’s largest such exercise aimed at stemming the spread of the virus.
“In the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, the demand for petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, fuel oil and bitumen have reduced substantially. The demand for ATF (aviation turbine fuel) has also come down sharply because of the suspension of flights,” state-run IOC said on Wednesday.
