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India’s Thirst For Oil Is Outpacing China
In a disclosure that might not necessarily be good news for Indian economic and government planners, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said last week that India will pass China as the country with the largest demand for oil by 2024, accounting for about 30 percent of total global oil demand growth.
Sushant Gupta, a research director for energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said that this would create substantial problems for the country’s refining sector. "This is clearly an uphill task, unless domestic refiners can commit to their planned capacity additions," Gupta said in statements to UPI.
The report added that if India can't find ways to produce its own gasoline, it will have to look to more imports. Countries with spare capacity are in the EU or the U.S., though Wood Mackenzie said the trade distances could create concerns for a growing India.
India’s oil imports are already spiking with most of its crude oil coming from OPEC producers. Much of this procurement is made, according to many analysts, to curry political favor with these nations since large number of Indian expats work in various middle eastern nations.
Last month, Iraq bypassed Saudi Arabia to become India’s largest crude oil supplier. The Economic Times said that Iraq’s rise in supply (with crucial ramifications for India’s crude mix) is mainly attributed to Indian refiners’ growing hunger for heavier grades of crude and Saudi Arabia’s decision to over-confirm on output cuts decided in the January 2017 OPEC meeting. India’s crude oil imports in terms of value rose 25 percent to $87.8 bn in 2017-18.
By Tim Daiss - Aug 28, 2018, 12:00 PM CDT
SITER.KZ