India: FY’21 pet coke production hit by Covid, down 18% y-o-y

The share of domestic pet coke in India’s total production of all petroleum products dropped 7% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 5.2% in FY2021 (FY’21).

Further, the country’s pet coke production reduced by 17.8% in FY’21, while the combined production of all petroleum products decreased by 11.2% during the year under review.

Pet coke production in relation to production of all petroleum products by domestic refineries for the last 5 years is given below.

Domestic pet coke production includes various grades, i.e. fuel grade (high sulphur), anode grade (low sulphur) and calcined petroleum coke.

On an overall basis, pet coke production during FY’17 was 13million tonnes (mnt), which gradually reached almost 15 mnt in FY’20. Post Covid-19, output suffered a huge setback, reducing by around 18% to 12mnt.

The petroleum industry in India has been adversely affected like other industries by the present pandemic. The impact has been varied for various sub-products, depending on their application across sectors.

While crude processing gives the overall indication of capacity utilisation of the industry, production of each sub-product may vary depending on the nature of crude processed, coupled with its demand and realisation in the market.

It may also vary for different refineries depending upon the protocols of restrictions imposed in that area by local authorities. Productions had been affected in varying degrees at various pet coke producing refineries due to the regulations imposed by the Indian Central and various state governments to control the spread of Covid-19. The pandemic has not only affected production of pet coke — there has been an overall reduction in crude throughput, affecting the total production of petroleum products.

Notably, pet coke is the fourth largest product, based on percentage share, amongst other major petroleum products after high speed diesel (HSD), petrol (MS) and naphtha. Typically, HSD has the largest share amongst all petroleum products.