New Delhi, Dec 23: A planned month-long shutdown of Indian Oil Corporation's Mathura refinery has been postponed because of a shortfall in domestic supply of diesel, naphtha and petrol, a company official said on Thursday. "Yesterday, the Oil Coordination Committee decided that the shutdown will not take place in January as there was a shortfall in supply of diesel, naphtha and petrol in the country," an IOC official told Reuters.No further date has been fixed for the purpose.
The earlier plan was to close the refinery for maintenance work, with the crude distillation unit (CDU) to be shut from January 7 and the fluid catalytic cracking unit 10 days later.
The refinery, located in Uttar Pradesh, was to be restarted in the first week of February.
An industry official said on Thursday that India would import 0.25 per cent sulphur diesel for January delivery aimed at bridging an expected shortfall in the product caused by technical problems at some refineries.
"Eventually, some quantity will have to be purchased because of production problems associated with some refineries," the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.
He declined to name the refineries which, he said, were facing "temporary" technical glitches. Oil traders at Singapore said that IOC had issued a tender to buy diesel for delivery January 16-23. The industry official said the amount of import was yet to be decided because the refineries were trying to avoid shutdowns.
IOC's tender seeks cargoes of 30,000 tonnes each for delivery into Goa and Mumbai and 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes into Madras/Haldia on the east coast.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.