"We have to do some corrections in tower. We are looking at deferring the shutdown because industry demand has come," Murali told Reuters.

Indian refiners are struggling to find takers for their diesel import tenders as traders target more lucrative sales to disaster-hit Japan.

Murali, however, said the company has no plans to change a 45-day maintenance shutdown of a 60,000 bpd crude unit, a visbreaker unit and a fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) at Vizag refinery. The shutdown will begin in November, he said.

HPCL runs a 130,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in Mumbai and a 166,000 bpd plant at Vizag, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.