Oil strike,Day 1: No one blinks,refineries crippled

They have informed us that next step is termination orders which they will start issuing from tomorrow, OSOA president Amit Kumar said.

The strike resulted in the country losing close to Rs 7,000 crore today as crude oil and natural gas output crashed,processing was crippled at four refineries,and gas supply to fertilizer and power units along the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur HBJ pipeline was turned off.

A ministry official said the power generation capacity loss was 7,000 MW,and fertiliser production output loss 43,000 tonnes as 17 urea plants shut down in the face of insufficient gas. Two more urea units are likely to shut down on Thursday.

Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said petrol,diesel,LPG and kerosene supplies were normal,but industrial output had been hit. On public life,impact is nil as of now. On industry,yes,on gas production,yes, he said. There were reports,however,that some Air India Domestic and Jet Airways flights were affected early in the day.

Pandey said crude output from Oil amp; Natural Gas Corp ONGC had fallen to 270,000 barrels per day bpd from the usual 350,000 bpd. Gas production had fallen by 33 million standard cubic metres per day.