India’s rising oil consumption to support investments in refineries, upstream production: Moody’s

14 May 2019 Evaluate

Global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service in its latest report on regulatory and security policies in emerging markets has stated that India’s rising oil and gas consumption will support its investments in refining capacity additions and upstream production. However, it pointed out that imports will keep growing amid stagnant production and government pressure for shareholder returns will temper national oil company (NOC) credit quality.

According to the report, the country's oil import dependence has risen from 82.9 percent in 2017-18 to 83.7 percent in 2018-19. Import dependence in 2015-16 was 80.6 percent. It also said that all petroleum products in India are now sold at prices linked to international or regional market rates, which has opened up the fuel retail market. However, it said that national oil companies - Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) continue to enjoy over 90 percent market share in petroleum product distribution. It indicated that the three oil refining and marketing NOCs control 57,944 petrol pumps out of a total of 64,624 petrol pumps in the country.

The global rating agency further indicated that the country’s oil consumption grew to 211.6 million tonnes (MT) in 2018-19 from 206.2 MT in 2017-18. It noted that fuel consumption was 184.7 MT in 2015-16. It added that though the country is short in producing crude oil, which is turned into fuel at refineries, it manufactures surplus petroleum products. In 2018-19, production of petroleum products was 262.4 MT.

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