Fuel sale coming back to pre-COVID level: IOC official
Fuel sale in the country is coming back to normal which also shows the reflection of normalcy in economy, a senior Indian Oil Corporation official said on Wednesday. In Maharashtra, the sale is yet to reach the pre-COVID situation and the deficit in diesel sale is still around 12 per cent, Executive Director and Maharashtra State head of Indian Oil Corporation Amitabh Akhauri told reporters here. “As an industry we saw growth in petrol sale in October by 2 per cent. But in November it remained down but this month we are expecting to reach back to pre-COVID situation,” he said. “Since last month, the throughput of our refinery is 100 per cent and it shows that we are back to almost normal.” About fuel sale in Maharashtra, he said that there are limitations in the state as cities are sometimes closed. “The COVID effect is still there as we can see there is night curfew imposed in cities. Still we expect to reach normal sale in terms of petrol but the deficit in diesel will remain,” he added. Speaking about the new LPC cylinder named Chhotu which weighs just 5 kg, Akhauri said the company is planning to distribute it with the help of grocery shops and fuel outlets. The cylinder can prove useful for travelling and floating population and can get the refill from any outlet of the company. The company is also doing research in using hydrogen as fuel and batteries used for electric cars and also on charging stations. The company has also launched XP 100 petrol used to enhance performance of high-end luxury cars and bikes in 15 cities across the country and Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai of Maharashtra are included in its first phase, Akhauri added. About the company’s investments in Maharashtra, Akhauri said IOC is planning to invest Rs 2,600-2,700 crore in coming period. Of that, around Rs 800 crore will be invested in 2020-21. The company is laying pipeline from Manmad to Solapur and the capacities of company in Manmad will be almost doubled. The company is also establishing a bottling plant in Nagpur which will be operational in the next 2-3 months. The investment is of Rs 400 crore, he added.
Nord Stream 2 to start laying gas pipes in Danish waters -regulator
The Russia-led Nord Stream 2 consortium is expected to start laying gas pipes in Danish waters after construction was suspended for a year owing to the threat of sanctions from the United States, according to a Danish maritime regulator. Nord Stream 2, designed to double capacity of the existing undersea Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, has become a bone of contention between Moscow and Washington, with the United States seeking to cut Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. The United States also plans to increase sales of its own sea-borne liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe. The Danish Maritime Authority has issued notification of pipe-laying works for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline on the Baltic Sea bed from Jan. 15, according to a publication on the regulator’s website dated Dec. 22. It said the Fortuna vessel will perform the pipe-laying work and will be assisted by construction vessels Baltic Explorer and Murman along with other supply vessels. The Fortuna is currently laying pipes in the shallow waters of the pipeline’s German zone after work resumed this month. The Nord Stream 2 consortium referred questions to the regulator’s website. “We are not in a position to deliver construction details,” a spokesman said. The consortium, led by Russian gas giant Gazprom, has yet to lay more than 100km of pipeline with annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres, though more than 90% of the project has been completed. Swiss-Dutch company Allseas suspended the laying of pipes in December 2019 after the threat of sanctions from Washington, leaving Russia to utilise its own resources to construct the 1,230 km pipeline. Gazprom’s western partners in the project, which is estimated to cost 9.5 billion euros ($11.6 billion), are Germany’s Uniper, BASF’s Wintershall Dea , Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell, Austria’s OMV and French energy company Engie.
Reliance-BP’s natural gas production to raise domestic consumption and cut expensive imports, say analysts
Natural gas from Reliance-BP’s new field in the KG basin will help raise domestic consumption and cut expensive imports, analysts and industry executives said. RIL-BP’s production has started at a time the liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices in the international spot markets are roaring. Spot LNG rates in Asia have jumped to above $11 per unit this month, a six-year-high, from a record low of under $2 per unit in May on colder-than-normal winters in north Asia, higher freight, and supply outage at some LNG exporting plants. Most of the gas currently being produced by RIL-BP’s new field was sold last year at a price linked to crude oil and can’t rise above the government-set ceiling of $4.06 per unit until March. “There is a lot of latent domestic demand. The new volume from RIL-BP will help domestic consumption to rise,” said K Ravichandran, senior vice president & group head-corporate ratings at rating agency ICRA. “There will be a small impact on import as well where consumers will want to cut down on expensive spot purchases.” Consumers will also be inclined to partly replace expensive spot purchases with cheaper long-term volumes, which are mostly linked to crude oil prices, analysts said. Customers had begun using more spot buys when prices had sharply fallen due to the pandemic in previous months. Long-term contracts usually offer customers the flexibility to partly switch between long-term and spot volumes. Since some of the customers of Reliance-BP were already using imported LNG, they may cut such imports, a GAIL executive said, adding that country’s imports may shrink to that extent. Imports meet 55% of domestic gas demand today, compared to 51% last year. The marketing margin for demand aggregators like GAIL, Indian Oil, and GSPC will reduce since spot volumes offer higher margins but that will be partly offset by increased pipeline tariff on higher volumes, said Ravichandran. Some gas GAIL markets in the country are imported from the US and linked to Henry Hub prices. The spot prices on Henry Hub have averaged $2.61 per unit in November, up from $2.39 in October. US Energy Information Administration expects monthly spot prices to average $3.01 per unit in 2021, up from the forecast average of $2.07 for 2020.