NEW DELHI: India’s Reliance Industries, owner of the world’s biggest refining complex, imported 7.2 percent less oil in September compared with the previous month, with the share of Latin American oil rising to about 45 percent in overall purchases from a third, according to tanker arrival data from sources and ship tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.
The company, which has a diversified crude slate and shifts purchases to maximise revenue, bought about 1.23 million bpd last month, about 0.4 percent less oil than a year earlier.
The share of African oil in Reliance’s overall imports in September declined to 19 percent from 29 percent in August, while that of the Middle East remained flat at 34 percent, the data showed.
Reliance’s two advanced refineries in the western state of Gujarat can together process 1.2 million bpd of oil, or about 26 percent of India’s overall capacity. In September the private refiner made a rare purchase of Algerian Saharan Blend, while it continued to skip purchases from Colombia for a fourth straight month, the data showed.
