NEW DELHI: India\u2019s crude oil imports in December soared to the highest levels in nearly three years to more than 5 million barrels per day (bpd) as its refiners cranked up output to meet a rebound in fuel demand, data from trade sources showed.
\nIndia\u2019s year-end rush for crude supplies coincided with stronger demand from north Asian buyers during winter, boosting prices and an accelerating de-stocking of floating storage globally.
\nDecember oil imports by India, the world\u2019s third biggest crude importer and consumer, were about 29% more than the previous month and about 11.6% higher than a year earlier, the data showed, after fuel consumption rose for a fourth straight month to an 11-month high in December.
\n\u201cIndia\u2019s refinery utilisation rates are also nearing full capacity and probably refiners are replenishing inventory anticipating higher prices during winter,\u201d said Ehsan Ul Haq, analyst with Refinitiv.
\n\u201cThis is the harbinger of a recovery in fuel demand and improving refining margins.\u201d
\nHowever, India\u2019s annual crude imports declined by about a tenth in 2020 from the previous year to 4.04 million bpd, the lowest in five years, data compiled by Reuters showed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI: India\u2019s crude oil imports in December soared to the highest levels in nearly three years to more than 5 million barrels per day (bpd) as its refiners cranked up output to meet a rebound in fuel demand, data from trade sources showed. India\u2019s year-end rush for crude supplies coincided with stronger demand from north Asian buyers during winter, boosting prices and an accelerating de-stocking of floating storage globally. December oil imports by India, the world\u2019s third biggest crude importer and consumer, were about 29% more than the previous month and about 11.6% higher than a year earlier, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,219,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-oil-gas-the-times-of-india","category-the-times-of-india"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}