05-03-09 Indian refineries produced 2.6 % less fuel in January, the sharpest fall seen in four years, while crude oil output fell 8 %.
The state and private refiners turned 13.31 mm tons of crude oil into fuel in January compared to 13.67 mm tpy ago, according to the latest data released by Oil Ministry in New Delhi. Indian Oil Corp saw 5.3 % dip in crude processing to 4.04 mm tons while Reliance Industries reported a 12.1 % fall in production at 2.82 mm tons.

Public sector refineries saw a fall of 9.34 mm tons in output from 9.84 mm tpy ago, mostly on account of a strike by company executives halted work on many plants. Essar Oil, however, almost doubled its production to 1.14 mm tons from 608,000 tons in January 2008.
The refineries operated at 105.9 % of their installed capacity, with Reliance operating its Jamnagar unit at 103.7 % while Essar running at 128.1 % installed capacity.

The production of crude oil fell 8.1 % to 2.66 mm tons with strike impacting the output from fields like Mumbai High that saw a 6.2 % fall at 1.42 mm tons.
Natural gas production also dropped 4 %, a 2.58 bn cm and was lower than the planned 3.75 bn cm as Reliance could not start output from its eastern offshore fields.