13-03-09 Reliance USA, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries of India, has taken 1.3 mm barrels of clean product storage in the New York Harbour area, a company source said. This is the first time an Indian refiner has ever taken storage in the US to store and trade petroleum products.
"Earlier…, we concluded a deal with Hess to take storage at the Port Reading and First Reserve terminals," the source said. "The total storage would be 1.3 mm barrels and it is to store gasoline and diesel."

The Port Reading terminal is located in Port Reading, New Jersey, and the First Reserve terminal is in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The Port Reading terminal is connected to the Buckeye pipeline and is connected to other nearby terminals via the Colonial pipeline, while the First Reserve terminal in connected to other terminals via the Colonial line. The acquisition of storage at the Port Reading and First Reserve terminals will enable Reliance to participate in the New York Harbour barge and Buckeye gasoline and diesel markets.
"Now Reliance can be expected to be a supplier of heating oil to the US Northeast too," said a New York Harbour trader.

The First Reserve terminal is part of the US Department of Energy's Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, which is used to store and distribute heating oil. According to the US DOE, the First Reserve terminal has a total heating oil storage capacity of 3 mm barrels. The DOE has a contract with Hess to store and distribute 1.25 mm barrels of heating oil at the First Reserve terminal and Hess' Groton Terminal in Connecticut. The Groton terminal has a total heating oil capacity of 450,000 barrels.
The US DOE defines heating oil as "distillate fuel oil for use in atomizing type burners for domestic heating or for use medium capacity commercial-industrial burner units, with distillation temperatures between 540-640 degrees Fahrenheit at the 90 % recovery point; and the kinematic viscosities between 1.9-3.4 centistokes at 100 degrees Fahrenheit as defined in ASTM Specification D396-92."

Heating oil in the US currently has a maximum sulphur content of 2,000 ppm. There are plans for New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware to lower the sulphur in heating oil to 500 ppm in 2012 while the rest of the US Northeast would move to 500 ppm in 2014. New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware plan to move to 15 ppm sulphur heating oil in 2016, with the rest of the Northeast moving to 15 ppm in 2018.
According to the US Department of Energy, about 69 % of the 7.7 mm US households that use heating oil, or 5.3 mm, are in the US Northeast.

Reliance owns and operates two refineries in Jamnagar, India. Reliance wholly owns the 660,000 bpd refinery, which started up in 1999. Reliance Petroleum operates the recently commissioned 580,000 bpd refinery in Jamnagar.
Reliance Industries currently has a 70.99 % stake in Reliance Petroleum, with 24.01 % held publicly and 5 % owned by Chevron. Reliance Industries said at the end of February it will also buy Chevron's 5 % stake.