NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries Ltd, owner of the world’s biggest refining complex, shipped in about 9.2 percent less oil in August compared with a year earlier, according to tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.
Reliance, which has a diversified crude slate and shifts purchases to maximise revenue, bought about 1.21 million bpd last month, a decline of about 6.7 percent from July. Last month, Reliance skipped purchases from Iran. In March, the Indian conglomerate had resumed purchases from Tehran after a six-year gap. Reliance is looking for long-term supplies from Iran. The share of Latin American and African oil in Reliance’s overall imports declined in the first eight months of 2016, as the company shifted away from dated-Brent linked oil to Middle Eastern grades, the data showed.
The share of Middle Eastern crude in Reliance’s overall imports rose to about 57 percent in January-July 2016 compared with 40 percent a year ago, the data showed. During the same period, African grades accounted for about 6.8 percent of the crude purchased, compared with about 16.5 percent a year earlier, while the share of Latin American oil slipped to about 34 percent from 42 percent. Reliance’s two advanced refineries in the western India state of Gujarat can together process 1.2 million bpd of oil, or about 26 percent of India’s overall capacity.
