Indian Oil may regularly export jet fuel; offers rare cargo

NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE (

Reuters

) - Indian

Oil Corp

may regularly export jet fuel from its 300,000 barrel per day (bpd) Paradip refinery as the country's kerosene demand eases with the government's push to use of cooking gas. India has halted imports of kerosene since July 2015. The government has been promoting the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by providing free connections to rural households. Refiners adjust jet fuel and kerosene production depending on local demand. But jet fuel has more specifications than kerosene such as the smoke point, flash point, freeze point and cloud point. "Kerosene demand is coming down so we will produce aviation fuel and a small quantity of kerosene to meet market demand," said an

IOC

official, who is not authorised to speak to media. Paradip refinery on the east coast has offered up to 32,000 tonnes of aviation jet fuel for loading from Paradip in March in an unusual move, a tender document showed on Wednesday. He said the latest tender was an ad hoc export and from April IOC may offer at least 15,000 tonnes of aviation fuel every month for export. IOC has offered two cargoes of 15,000 to 16,000 tonnes each of jet fuel for loading from Paradip's south oil jetty over March 13 to 14 and March 24 to 25. Indian Oil usually sells the jet fuel it produces from its refineries within India. (Reporting by

Nidhi Verma

in NEW DELHI and

Jessica Jaganathan

in

Singapore

, editing by David Evans)