A series of shutdowns, some planned and some unplanned, of three petroleum refineries in the West Coast during April has had a cascading effect on the availability of petrol and diesel not only in major parts of Karnataka, but also in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
While Mangaluru-based Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd., (MRPL) was undergoing normal maintenance shutdown during March-April, there was some unexpected shutdown during April second-half. Meanwhile, Indian Oil Corporation’s Gujarat Refinery near Vadodara was under routine maintenance at which point of time Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar Refinery in Gujarat too had some unscheduled shutdown, according to a senior official with the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., that is in-charge of retail marketing in Karnataka on behalf of two other government-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs).
He said about 75 per cent of Karnataka’s retail fuel demands are catered to by the MRPL. While OMCs get prepared for the scheduled maintenance of refineries and procure fuel from other places, MRPL’s unscheduled shutdown impacted the procurement. Attempts by OMCs to procure fuel from Gujarat too went in vein.
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However, things have started improving by April-end when MRPL resumed its normal production even as OMCs have been procuring fuel from Vasco-da-Gama in Goa and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. Attempts to source fuel from elsewhere did not yield full results as the Railways was unable to provide as many rakes as possible due to the unscheduled demand.
The official said while diesel supply has almost reached normalcy in Karnataka, it might take another 10 days for the petrol. Depots of OMCs have been working round-the-clock since a month, even without weekly offs and holidays, to deliver fuel as and when they arrived, the official said.
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Bhushan Narang from the Karnataka Petroleum Dealers Association said that it is the panic buying that contributed a lot for the scarcity. When people get to know about scarcity, they tend to buy more and store the same leading to increased demand, he told The Hindu .
However, the Bengaluru region was almost insulated from the shortage as it gets supplies from Mangaluru as well as Chennai. He said with MRPL functioning normally since the end of April, normalcy could be expected in about 10 days.
No shortage, MRPL
However, the MRPL spokesperson denied there was any unplanned shutdown and said there was only a planned shutdown during April first week. There is no shortage of petrol or diesel, a release said.
Normalcy is expected to be restored in 10 days as refineries commence normal production, IOCL
*Average quantity of petrol sold in Karnataka a day – 2 lakh KL
* Average quantity of diesel sold in Karnataka a day – 4 lakh KL