Ceypetco to sign oil product procurement deal with ONGC

Apr 05, 2005 02:00 AM

Sri Lanka's Ceylon Petroleum Corp. (Ceypetco) will sign an oil product procurement agreement with India's state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), a Ceypetco official said. This will see Ceypetco buying 2.4 mm-3.6 mm barrels of gasoline, jet and gas-oil -- equivalent to two 300,000-barrel cargoes each month -- exclusively from ONGC over the next four to six months.
"We'd have to finalize the deal by this weekend as our first shipment will load soon," the Ceypetco official said.

The deal is part of a $ 150 mm credit line that India has extended to Sri Lanka for the import of India's oil products. ONGC will supply oil products from its affiliated Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals, which runs and operates a 195,000 bpd refinery in Mangalore.
The first shipment -- comprising 180,000 barrel of 0.25 % sulphur gas-oil and 120,000 barrel of jet -- is scheduled to be delivered to Colombo soon. A second cargo of the same combination is scheduled for May.

Ceypetco and ONGC have yet to finalize the term premiums for each product. Each month, Ceypetco usually imports 360,000 barrel of gas-oil, 120,000 barrel of gasoline and 120,000 barrel of jet fuel. Most of its imports are supplied by Indian refiner Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), and to a lesser extent, from the Persian Gulf.
ONGC typically exports 100,000 tons, or 746,000 barrel, of 0.5 % sulphur gas-oil and 72,000 tons, or 567,000 barrel, of jet from its Mangalore refinery every month through semi-term contracts. Its existing contracts with European trading houses Vitol and Glencore and Shell expired earlier.

Source: Dow Jones