Reliance Industries, owner of the world's biggest refining complex, shipped in 12 per cent less oil in April compared with the previous month ahead of planned maintenance shutdown of some units at its 580,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) plant in Gujarat, according to data obtained from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.
Reliance, which has a diversified crude slate and shifts purchases to maximise revenue, bought about 1.19 million bpd last month, marginally higher than a year earlier.
Reliance, which had received Iranian oil in March after a gap of six years, did not receive shipments from Tehran in April.
The share of Latin American and African oil in Reliance's overall imports declined in the first four months of 2016, as the company has shifted sourcing from dated Brent-linked markets to the Middle East.
The share of Middle Eastern crude in Reliance's overall imports rose to about 57 per cent in January-April from about 47 per cent a year ago, the data showed.
During the same period, African grades accounted for about 6 per cent of the crude purchased, compared with about 10 per cent a year earlier, while Latin American oil's share shrank to about a third from 43 per cent. Reliance's two advanced refineries in Gujarat can together process 1.2 million bpd of oil, or about 26 per cent of India's overall capacity.
(Reuters)
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