Frost & Sullivan: Rising Energy Demands Necessitate Capacity Additions in Oil and Gas Refineries

Mumbai, India - June 17th, 2009 - The sustained economic growth in the country over the last five years has led to a concurrent growth in energy demand across industrial, transportation, commercial, and residential sectors. Oil and gas account for 41 percent of India's energy consumption and there is unlikely to be any significant scaling down of dependence on these fuels in the next five to ten years.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.energy.frost.com), Strategic Analysis of Oil and Gas Sector in India, finds that the output of the Indian oil and gas sector was 184.3 million tonnes oil equivalent in 2008 and expects this to reach 339.6 million tonnes oil equivalent in 2015.

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"To meet this considerable demand, the oil and gas sector is expanding its refining capacity to drive output and export of petroleum products," says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Siddhartha Saha. "However, this is likely to widen the gap between domestic demand and supply of crude oil."

A substantial increase in the domestic supply of natural gas and reduced prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are likely to encourage gas consumption in power, fertilizer, city gas distribution, and other industrial segments. Owing to the rising consumption of oil and gas, the Government has framed favorable policies to promote exploration and production. This move has caused a quantum leap in domestic natural gas supply. Government policies have also supported the growth of export-oriented refining capacity in the country.

Natural and technological limitations in enhancing global oil production are likely to restrain supply from keeping pace with the demand. This, in turn, could lead to a continued increase in the base-level prices of crude oil.

"In India, the pricing of petroleum products and natural gas continues to be regulated by the government," observes Saha. "Though international crude oil prices have come down in the short term, they are expected to rebound and rise in a sustained fashion in the long term."

The oil and gas sector will have to strategize to deal with volatile prices on the supply side and government-regulated product prices in the coming years.

With margins under pressure, Indian refiners have begun to integrate with value-added products such as petrochemicals and invest in methods to improve distillate yields. Moreover, in response to the regulated product prices in the domestic market, the private sector refiners have moved to sell major shares of their products in the export market.

"As crude prices have increased, the spotlight is on widening the gross refining margins by up-grading heavy gas oils and vacuum residue to fuel products," notes Saha. "To gain additional revenue, Indian refineries are also integrating horizontally to venture into the production of more value-added products."

Source: Frost & Sullivan