Indian refinery MRPL looks to shift sourcing of crude oil from Russia to Venezuela

'Russian crude oil played a marginal role in improving the company’s bottom lines, and it was not kept as a crucial factor', MRPL Director & CFO Devendra Kumar said.

Mangaluru: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) is actively exploring avenues to buy Venezuelan crude oil for processing, MRPL Director (Finance) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Devendra Kumar said.

"We are actively looking at it. The freight rates is expected to be on the higher side when the company gets it from Venezuela, and also it is a low API crude. So we will look at the total terms and condition and the commercials,” he informed while responding to queries of analysts on crude oil sourcing during the earnings call on Monday.

Kumar said MRPL is in strict compliance with all international sanctions in place. Presently no Russian crude is being imported. The company will continue to comply with any government guidelines, he said, adding that, the company does not expect anything to stop its export of finished products in near future.

Kumar maintained that Russian crudes were 'opportunity crude'.

"Russian crude oil played a marginal role in improving the company’s bottom lines, and it was not kept as a crucial factor. MRPL did have a margin on Russian barrels and it had come down significantly towards the later part of the year," he said.

He said loss of Russian barrels is not going to make a significant impact. "Presently 40 % of our crude is met with purchases of middle Eastern crude. We also buy cargoes on the spot markets," he added.

The refinery recently had processed Sarir Mesla Crude from Libya, new crude ‘Hout’ from Kuwait Neutral Zone for the first time, sources informed DH.

A brief glance at the Mangaluru-based refinery

1. MRPL can process more than 250 different types of crude from around the world.

2. MRPL has a high Nelson Complexity Index of 10.6 which enables it to process heavy oil with high quality.

3. MRPL imports nearly 85 % crude through term contracts on annual basis from foreign National Oil Companies at their Official Selling Price.

4. High Speed Diesel (HSD), Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) constitute 50% of MRPL petroleum products

5. 40% of MRPL's petroleum products are exported.

6. MRPL sells mainly to PSU oil marketing companies (OMCs) and derives around 30-35% of its income through exports.

7. MRPL processes 10% of the total Crude oil refined by the PSU petroleum refineries of the country.