•What is India’s fuel consumption?

In 2007-08, India consumed 118.8 million tonnes of petroleum products which was largely met by processing crude oil, a chocolate-brown mixture of hydrocarbons obtained from below the earth’s crust. The country’s 19 refineries had to boil and distill 156.1 million tonnes of crude oil to obtain more than 30 types of petroleum products including petrol, diesel, kerosene, LPG, bitumen, aviation turbine fuel and paraffin wax.

•Can’t India meet its fuel requirements indigenously?

We don’t have in our country large finds of crude oil that can meet the processing needs of our refineries. Our two explorers — Oil & Natural Gas Corp and Oil India Ltd — as well as some private ones could collectively provide only 34.1 million tonnes out of the required 156.1 million tonnes of crude. The rest has to be imported.

•Where is our fuel sourced from, what are their types?

There is no single source that has the volumes that we require. And if there is one, it does not want to be wedded to a single buyer. There are various producers—mostly national oil companies like ONGC and OIL—scattered throughout the world. And depending on their geographical location, they have an array of crude oils: some light, some heavy depending on the number of carbon atoms; some sweet, some sour depending on the presence of unwanted pungent sulphur. The heavier the crude oil, the higher its boiling point, and hence, more cost incurred in extracting products out of them. On the other hand, the presence of sulphur in sour crudes requires stripping it out to produce environment friendly fuels, an expensive exercise.

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