The biggest refiner in India, Indian Oil Corp, plans to invest US$27.9 billion (2 trillion Indian rupees) over the next five to seven years to provide energy solutions to different consumer groups, chairman Sanjiv Singh said at the company's shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.
The corporation-which has 11 refineries across India representing around one third of the country's total refining capacity of 5 million bpd-will make the investments in order to "evolve into a future-ready corporate that provides comprehensive energy solutions to diverse user groups," Singh said.
Over the past year, Indian Oil has added 950 kilometers (590 miles) to its network of crude oil and oil product pipelines across the country, and now operates 14,200 kilometers (8,820 miles) of such pipelines in India, the company's chairman added.
Going forward, Indian Oil will pursue scaling up the petrochemicals vertical as a key priority again, "considering the enormous potential the plastics industry offers," Singh said.
The biggest Indian refiner will also look to "scale up its presence in e-mobility as well by equipping its customer touch-points with turbo-charging and battery-swapping facilities for EVs and plug-in hybrids."
Apart from petrochemicals and EVs, Indian Oil's core business of producing and selling fuels will also be a strategic priority, considering that India's oil demand is set to continuously grow in the foreseeable future.
India's crude oil demand is expected to rise to 500 million tons annually, or to around 10 million bpd, by 2040, from around 4.7 million bpd in 2017, Partha Ghosh, executive director for optimization at Indian Oil, said in September last year.
India is expected to account for more than a quarter of net global primary energy demand growth between 2017 and 2040, according to the BP Energy Outlook 2019. India's oil consumption will grow to 9 million bpd in 2040 from 5 million bpd in 2017, rising by 3.1 percent every year through 2040, BP reckons.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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