BPCL, IOC seek gasoline after long absence

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) are looking to buy up to 41,000 tonnes of gasoline, after a long absence, to plug a supply gap caused by a plant outage and maintenance that coincides with summer demand, traders said.

IOC is seeking 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes of gasoline for June 12 to 14 arrival at Kochi and similar volumes for June 14 to 16 arrival at Kandla through a tender which closes on May 28, with offers to stay valid until May 29.

BPCL is seeking 25,000 tonnes of 91-octane gasoline for delivery into Kochi over the first-half of June. The tender closes on May 27 and is valid until May 28.

BPCL has not imported gasoline in at least a year, traders said on Wednesday, while this is IOC's first import tender this year.

"The additional gasoline demand is due to an overall shortage of products," one of the sources said, declining to elaborate further.

BPCL is not expected to seek gasoil cargoes for import as of now, the source added.

The moves come after a fire hit India's Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd's 8.3 million tonnes a year Visakhapatnam plant on May 16, prompting it to shut a 3 million tonnes-a-year, or around 60,000 barrels-per-day, crude distillation unit.

HPCL is aiming to restart the unit by the last week of June, which is expected to create a domestic oil product shortfall in the interim, traders said.

Separately, Mangalore Refinery Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) is having a partial maintenance at its 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) plant in New Mangalore.

"Everything is coming together," said another trader referring to the refinery maintenance and outage that comes at a time when demand is set to rise due to summer school holidays.

Copyright: Thomson Reuters 2013