NEW DELHI: Indian refiners processed 2.8 percent less oil in October from a year ago, the first decline since November 2010, because of refinery maintenance shutdowns during the month, government data showed on Friday.
Refiners processed about 3.12 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil last month versus 3.10 million bpd in September, when crude processing was up an annual 4.4 percent.
The annual rate of growth declined in October due to maintenance shutdown at refiners of Indian Oil Corp, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals and Essar Oil .
Reliance Industries, whose two refineries at Jamnagar in western Gujarat state account for about a third of India's refining capacity, does not report data for its 580,000 bpd export-focused plant to the government.
Output at Reliance's bigger 660,000 bpd plant was up 9.6 percent during the month, while that of Essar Vadinar refinery, also in Gujarat, declined 79.4 percent.
Essar had shut its refinery in mid-September to raise capacity to 375,000 bpd. The plant resumed operations on Oct 24 while a crude unit at MRPL's plant came back online in mid-October.
Throughput of state refiners rose an annual 3.9 percent in October, when global refining margins recovered.
Last month, units at IOC's 160,000 Mathura plant in northern India were shut for maintenance, a government statement said.
For a table on India's refinery and crude oil output, see:
Crude processing by the 120,000 bpd Bina refinery in central India, which came onstream earlier this year, has not so far been included in the data.
The country's crude oil output during the month declined 0.9 percent to about 760,000 bpd.
India, the world's fourth-biggest crude importer, produces only a fraction of its overall needs.
Natural gas output declined 7.4 percent to about 4.03 billion cubic metres in October from a year ago as production from the Reliance-operated D6 block in the east coast declined after touching about 60 million cubic metres per day last year.
India's oil output is expected to rise an annual 1.3 percent to 763,800 bpd in fiscal year 2011/12, while natural gas production is seen edging down to 51.68 billion cubic meters from a year ago.
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