Oil import may go up to 90 mn tonnes by 2002

New Delhi, Sept 5: According to sources, the mid-term review meeting is likely to be held in the third week of September. The meeting will...

New Delhi, Sept 5: According to sources, the mid-term review meeting is likely to be held in the third week of September. The meeting will take an overall view of the progresses made in the implementation of various programmes envisaged in the Five-Year Plan as well as the future course for the rest of the Plan period.

The report also said that the demand for the primary energy availability in the country during the first three years of the Ninth Plan has come down and registered an annual average growth rate of 5.2 per cent as against the anticipated annual growth rate of 6.8 per cent for the Five-Year Plan period as a whole.

The actual imports of crude oil and petroleum products during 1998-99 were 39.8 MMT and 18.09 MMT respectively. It had gone up to 63.94 MMT of crude oil and 10.36 MMT of petroleum products during 1999-2000. In addition, 5.70 MMT of petroleum products would be imported by private sector. However the actual growth rate during the first three years of the Plan works out to be 6.8 per cent. If this growth trend continues, the consumption of petroleum products will be about 110 million tonnes during 2001-02, including liquid fuel requirement for power generation.

The projected crude oil and natural gas production from the indigenous sources at the terminal year was 36.98 MMT and 30.70 BCM respectively. However, the actual production during 1997-98 and 98-99 have been much lower than the targets and as such the Ninth Plan target may not be achieved. However, the interesting thing about the petroleum sector is that the higher growth in the refining capacity is likely to be over achieved. The refining capacity was targeted to increase from 61.5 MMT in 1997-98 to 113.95 MMT by the terminal year.

But the present estimates indicate that the refining capacity may go up to 129.04 MMT and is more than adequate to meet the domestic demand. The Plan panel has suggested that some of the grassroot refinery projects being processed for approval need to be rescheduled until the demand picks up. The report also suggested that quot;in view of the strategic importance of the oil sector, there is a need to have significant presence of government through public sector units, both in upstream and downstream sector. If necessary, PSUs may be restructured to have the required, strength to compete with multinationals.quot;