India’s domestic consumption of petroleum coke in Sep’20 is reported as 1.35 million tonnes (mn t), against 1.76 mn t in the same month last year, reflecting a reduction of 23.4%.
Moreover, cumulative pet coke consumption in Apr-Sep’20 has been 9.06 mn t, compared with 11.32 mn t in the corresponding period of the last year, registering a reduction of 19.9%.
Furthermore, Pet coke consumption of 1.35 mn t in Sep’20 is also lower by almost 25% against the annual average consumption of 1.80 mn t in FY 2019-20.
Pet coke production had been affected following the restrictions imposed due to Covid-19. However, the graded unlocking process has improved in different stages and now with the Unlock 4.0 starting w.e.f. 1st Sep’20, the government has permitted some more relaxations for economic activities with suitable guidelines and protocols. It is expected that pet coke production will increase in coming months amidst the improvement in overall economic and industrial situation.
Productions have been at different levels at various pet coke producing refineries across the country. The pandemic situation has not only affected the production of pet coke but there has been overall reduction in crude throughput affecting the total production of petroleum products.
Indian pet coke production growth outpaces all petroleum products
India’s petroleum coke production by domestic oil companies has been consistently increasing alongside the production of all other petroleum products.
Over the past decade, it has been observed that the aggregate production of all petroleum products has grown to 262.9 million tonnes (mn t) in FY 2020, as against 196.2 mn t in FY 2011, which translates to a moderate growth of 3.4% per year.
Meanwhile, the production of pet coke has grown remarkably to 14.6 mn t in FY 2020 from 2.8 mn t during FY 2011, which shows an outstanding growth of 421% over the decade, or a growth of 42.1% per year.
Due to this high growth in production of pet coke, its share among all petroleum products has increased sharply. From a very low market share of 1.4% in FY 2011, it has increased to 5.6% in FY 2020.
The production of all petroleum products as compared to percentage share of pet coke production is represented graphically from FY 2011 to 2020. The production data includes both fuel-grade and anode-grade pet coke, while its sales also includes calcined petroleum coke (CPC) besides raw pet coke.
The chart clearly indicates that the production growth of pet coke has been much higher as compared to the growth in overall production of other petroleum products. This is mainly due to commissioning of new refineries with delayed coker units (DCU) to increase the production of light and middle distillates by processing heavy residue, which yield light pet coke as a byproduct.
New refineries that were commissioned during the past decade include Nayara Energy (erstwhile Essar Oil), HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL)’s Guru Gobind Singh Petroleum Refinery at Bhatinda in Punjab, Bharat Oman Refinery Limited (BORL)’s Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh, Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in Assam and IndianOil’s Paradip refinery in Odisha.
Besides these new refineries, some of the existing refineries also commissioned DCUs to increase the light and middle distillates. These include IOC Koyali, BPCL Kochi, MRPL Mangalore and CPCL Chennai.
All these refineries have jointly contributed towards the increase in production of pet coke over the period under analysis. The major surge was during 2010 to 2013, after which the production growth has moderated.
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