As per the latest official figures, gross exports of petroleum products have staged a 12-fold increase during this fiscal at 8,427 thousand metric tonne (TMT), resulting in export earnings of Rs 9,030 crore ($1974 million) over the previous year's. As against this, gross exports during 1999-2000, were a mere 746 TMT at Rs 698 crore ($ 161 million). However, at the same time, owing to stagnation in indigenous crude oil production, coupled with an ever-growing increase in demand, the country continues to depend heavily on crude imports. The country's crude oil imports in this fiscal have grown to over 25 per cent over last year's. Official figures show that while indigenous crude production during the current fiscal remained stagnant at around 32,000 TMT, crude imports in this period have peaked to 74,800 TMT to meet the country's crude requirement of 1,03,400 TMT for 2000-01. This will result in a funds out go of Rs 69,601 crore during this fiscal. As against this, crude imports during 1999-2000, were 57,805TMT at Rs 40,029 crore.

Gross imports of petroleum products have fallen in the current fiscal due to surplus of controlled petroleum products like petrol, diesel and ATF right from the beginning of this financial year. During 2000-01, gross imports of petroleum products have come down to 7,694 TMT from 16,607 TMT during 1999-2000. The net value of product imports during the current fiscal is estimated at Rs 10,117 crore and the total value of crude and products imports stand at Rs 79,718 crore by the end of this fiscal.

Therefore, as against the gross imports of Rs 79,718 crore, it is the products export during the current fiscal which has helped in reducing the country's net oil import bill burden by Rs 9,000 crore. Officials disclosed that by the fiscal end, exports of controlled products such as diesel will be 2,291 TMT, petrol at 1,500 TMT and ATF at 226 TMT. It is significant to note here that in order to control the surpluses of petrol, diesel and ATF, while at the same time checking the LPG and Kerosene deficit at the beginning of this fiscal, the government had asked refineries to reduce the surpluses of diesel by supplying a pre-determined percentage of their crude throughput (9 per cent) as kerosene. Diesel position also underwent changes and resulted in surpluses due to various other factors such as drop in the production and sale of commercial vehicles during the period April-December 2000 by 13.4 per cent against a growth of 30 per cent in the previous year, besides more and more electrification of railwayswhich resulted in less consumption of diesel by the Railways, which is a major diesel consumer.