India is planning to double its oil refining capacity in the next five years, the country’s prime minister Narendra Modi has said, much earlier than a previously announced target.
India’s minister for petroleum and natural gas and steel, Dharmendra Pradhan, said in June that the country was set to double its refining capacity for crude oil to 450-500m tonnes per annum by 2030 from the current level of about 250m tonnes, while a new refinery in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra with a refining capacity of 60m tonnes per annum is set to start soon.
However, prime minister Modi was quoted over the weekend saying that work is being done to nearly double the country’s oil refining capacity in the next five years.
Modi also said India was aiming to raise the share of natural gas in its energy-consumption mix by up to four times and achieve its targets of increasing renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022 and 450 gigawatts by 2030 ahead of schedule. The fuel currently accounts for about 6% of the energy consumed in the country.
The Covid crisis has hastened a seismic shift in the global refining industry as demand for plastics and fuels grows in China and the rest of Asia.
According to data from the International Energy Agency, for the first time since the start of the modern oil age in 1859, the US will lose its crown as the world’s largest petroleum refiner. China is set to become number one as early as next year.