Essar Oil earmarks entire production for domestic market

Friday, 09 January 2009, 23:57 IST
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New Delhi: Essar Oil's entire production will be for the domestic market, a senior company official said here Friday, the third day of an indefinite strike called by oil sector officers. "All our products, 100 percent, are entirely for the domestic market," a senior Essar official told IANS. "We had some export obligations. But they are not for this period and anyway, the orders have been deferred," he said. So far, only Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) has been loading Essar products, but the official said "loading by rail" maybe started shortly for two other public sector oil marketing companies, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL). Besides Essar, another private retailer, Reliance Petroleum, has also been supplying petroleum products to state-owned marketing companies. Public sector refineries are currently running at 60 percent capacity, with four refineries of IOC at Panipat (Haryana), Haldia (West Bengal), Koyali (Gujarat) and Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) suspending operations. The official added that sales at Essar's retail outlets have "more than doubled" on account of the oil sector officers' strike. Essar operates about 1,000 retail outlets around the country. Essar operates a 10.5-MMTPA (Million Metric Tonne Per Annum) refinery at Vadinar in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The government had asked the private refiners to be on standby at the start of the strike called by the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA).
Source: IANS