"The EoU status of the 33 million tons a year refinery has ended this week," an industry official said.  The Jamnagar refinery, which was commissioned in July 1999 and now known as J-1, was converted into an EoU with effect from April 16, 2007.

Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote], a unit of the company, in December 2008 commissioned a new only-for-exports refinery J-2, adjacent to the old unit.

The official said Reliance will continue to export most of the fuel from J-1 but will also sell petrol and diesel in domestic market. It may sell 2.5-3 million tons of diesel to public sector fuel retailers - Indian Oil [Get Quote], Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum - to meet the deficit they are expected to have in 2009-10.

Also, it may reopen the the 1,432 petrol pumps it had shut last year as it could not compete with subsidised fuel sold by public sector retailers.

Though the margins on petrol and diesel had turned positive with the fall in international oil prices since October 2008, Reliance still could not sell fuel from J-1 through the petrol pumps as the EoU status made it prohibitive for the company to sell fuel locally.