Oil, gas and refining
Refining is the industrial core of Indian Oil. The group owns and operates 11 of India's refineries, which together give it a refining capacity of about 80.7 million tonnes a year, and the company describes that as roughly 35 per cent of the country's refining capacity once its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum is counted. The plants run from Assam in the northeast to Gujarat in the west and Paradip on the east coast.[1]
The refinery list reads like a map of India's oil history: Digboi, the oldest refinery in the country, along with Guwahati and Bongaigaon in the northeast, Barauni in Bihar, Haldia in West Bengal, Koyali and the Gujarat refinery in the west, Mathura and Panipat in the north, and Paradip in Odisha. Chennai Petroleum, in which Indian Oil holds the controlling stake, adds the refineries at Manali near Chennai and at Narimanam.[1]
The Koyali and Gujarat refineries anchor the western petrochemical and fuel supply, while Paradip is the newest large complex and was built to process heavy crude and serve export markets as well as the east. Panipat is the most modern of the northern refineries and has been expanded repeatedly, and it is also where the company placed its large petrochemical complex.[1]
Crude comes from a mix of domestic fields and imports. Indian Oil has equity in overseas exploration blocks, buys crude on term contracts from producers such as Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and has bought spot cargoes when the market allowed. Delek, QatarEnergy and Saudi Aramco have been among its largest business partners in the recent past.[1]
Refining margins decide a great deal of the reported profit. When the spread between crude prices and product prices widens, as it did in 2022 after the war in Ukraine, Indian refiners earn more on every barrel; when it narrows, as in the years when global demand was weak, the same refineries produce less profit even at full throughput. Numbers reported for the year ended March 2026 put revenue at about 9,01,453 crore rupees, an operating income of about 57,472 crore rupees and a net profit of about 43,677 crore rupees.[1]
