India's refineries operating at 105% to 108% of capacity, MRPL official says

SINGAPORE: India's refinery capacity utilisation has been at 105% to 108% over the last six months, a senior official from refiner Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals said on Wednesday, adding that higher diesel ‌demand is ⁠pushing ⁠refiners to prioritise diesel over jet fuel.

"Most of our ​refiners are complex, can take a wide variety of crude ​from API range from something like 16 to 45 or 48," said Nandakumar Pillai, a ​company director, at the APPEC conference.

Separately, ⁠the company ‌plans to operate at greater ​than 100% until ​March next year, Pillai told ⁠Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.


MRPL operates a 300,000-barrel-per-day coastal refinery in India's southern Karnataka state.

At present, a third of the company's crude supply comes from the Middle East, a third comes from domestic supplies and a third comes from the rest of ‌the world, Pillai said, adding that MRPL has been diversifying its crude procurement ​since the ​start of the ⁠Russia-Ukraine war.

On refined products, Pillai said higher diesel demand in India is pushing refiners to prioritise diesel over jet fuel.

"Depends on the hardware, we can go anywhere between 8% to 12% of the swing" between diesel and jet fuel, Pillai said.