Reliance Industries Ltd, India's sole private sector refiner, on Monday sought Petroleum Minister Ram Naik's help in getting public sector oil companies to buy fuel from its 33 million tonne Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat.
Reliance Industries' chairman Mukesh Ambani met Naik to help in getting oil companies to lift 11.3 million tonnes of petroleum products in 2004-05 as against 4.3 million tonnes planned by the state-owned oil retailers, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp, official sources said.
State oil companies have decided to cut purchases from Reliance next year as they would be taking more products from Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. They will also have enhanced production from Chennai refinery and Mumbai refinery after their expansion.
For 2004-05, oil companies have decided to lift from Jamnagar only 1.3 million tonnes of diesel, the mainstay fuel of Reliance refinery.
They would buy 0.3 million tonnes of petrol and kerosene each, as opposed to 0.6 million tonnes of petrol and 2.3 million tonnes of kerosene bought in 2003-04.
Oil companies would take 2.4 million tonnes of LPG from Jamnagar, marginally higher than this year's 2.2 million tonnes.
Sources said Reliance Industries wants oil companies to continue to buy products from Jamnagar refinery for at least two years after the expiry of its existing agreement with oil companies on March 31, 2004.
"Ambani sought an extension of the agreement to enable the companies to set up its retail network," they said adding that the company, which was granted licence to set up 5849 petrol pumps in the country, has only set up 3 petrol pumps till now.
