 According
to Assocham despite an increase in India's refining
capacity over the next five years, the country's import
of crude oil is expected to rise to 85 per cent of its
requirement by 2012, up from the current level of 70
per cent.
The
rise in imports is attributed to growing demand for
energy with lack of domestic discoveries and inadequate
resources to harness its alternate sources, the industry
body said.
According
to Assocham, "Despite abundance of alternate sources
of energy in India, harnessing available resources would
remain a problem until new techniques to extract available
crude oil are identified," it said.
Assocham
notes that the increase would take place even though
refining capacity in India will rise by 58 per cent
to 235 million tonnes in the next five years. India
currently has an annual refining capacity of about 159
million tonnes.
Some
of the projects that are likely to be commissioned during
the 11th Plan period are Reliance Petroleum's 29 million
tonne refinery at the Jamnagar SEZ, IOC's 15 million
tonne refinery coming up in Orissa, HPCL's nine million
tonne and BPCL's six million tonne refinery at Punjab,
which would employ higher imports of crude oil in future.
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