IndianOil needs more imported crude at Koyali
Imported crude could soon account for as much as 80% of the oil refined at IndianOil’s 13.7m Koyali refinery near Vadodara in Gujarat against 50% today as supplies of domestic crude continue to drop.
IndianOil tells this report crude supplies have drastically fallen from more than 100 ONGC fields in the onland Cambay basin and from operators Cairn, GSPC, Selan, and Joshi Technologies. “This sharp decline in domestic production is a major concern,” reports a senior IOC source.
The north Gujarat pipeline takes oil supplies to Koyali from north Gujarat from the Mehsana and Ahmedabad assets of ONGC as well as from private players. Since 2012 supplies have fallen from 11,000 t/d (80,630 b/d) to 10,000 t/d (73,300 b/d) today.
Likewise supplies from south Gujarat from fields like ONGC’s Ankleshwar asset have also fallen over the same period from 5000 t/d (36,650 b/d) to just 2000 t/d (14,660 b/d) today. “ONGC does not give us any guarantee on the amount of crude expected to flow on any given day,” adds IOC.
“This disrupts our refining schedules. We also worry we might eventually stop receiving any ONGC supplies.
” Yet IndianOil hopes crude supplies from Cairn’s RJ-ON-90/1 block, which produces around 175,000 b/d, will continue unabated. Cairn crude accounts for around 10% of the Gujarat refinery’s total supplies.