State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp has charted out plans to invest Rs 90,000 crore till 2030 with a significant portion of the funds to be allocated for building a green energy portfolio, the company’s chairman and managing director Rajneesh Narang tells Arunima Bharadwaj in an interview. The company is also exploring opportunities for oil and gas deals with the US entities given the country’s plans to buy more energy products from the country announced during the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington. With the rising domestic demand, the company is also looking to increase the capacity of its Vizag refinery by 20%. Excerpts:
How would the latest US sanctions on Russial impact HPCL’s crude imports?
Last year, Russian crude had accounted for 35-40% of our total crude imports. Even before the Russian Ukraine war, our refineries were operating. So there is sufficient crude available, there’s no dearth of crude oil. How did Russia fit into the entire scheme of things when is they started giving discounts. When we procure crude, we take a decision of buying the crude based on its economics, the value it creates in our system. So long, the discounts were good and procurement of Russian crude was adding value in our system.
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Now, post the US sanctions we have already tied up our crude supplies up to February. Since the sanctions had come up, the availability of Russian crude had declined. But we need to give them time to settle down as to how it figures out and how the crude will ultimately flow into this part of the region.
We have tied up (for crude volumes) as far as the crude requirement for April and May is concerned. And as and when an opportunity comes out, tomorrow, and if Russian crude is available, we will go for it.
Off late, the discount also had narrowed down. So, it is not going to significantly impact the performance of the company, or profitability. Because Russia had significantly narrowed its discounts and with the US making a statement that they will not subscribe to the greening and increase oil production, more oil is going to come on the platter.
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