Thailand's oil imports up 2% from year-ago

Thailand’s oil imports fell 14% month-on-month in April but edged up 1.9% year-on-year to 4.04 billion liters, the country’s Department of Energy Business said. The country imported almost 3.1 billion liters of crude oil from the Middle East, 716 million liters from the Far East and 187 million liters from other regions, along with a small amount of refined products. Domestic crude oil output totaled 760 million liters or 159,426 barrels per day (bpd), up 2.9% from March and 14.7% from the same period a year ago. The country’s refiners shipped 1.03 billion liters of oil products in April worth 13.77 billion baht (US$404 million), mainly to destinations within Asia and China. Exports of gasoline totaled 886 million liters in April, up 30.7% from March and up 9.9% from April last year. Demand for diesel fuel totaled 52.9 million liters per day (lpd), followed by LPG at 21.3 million lpd, ethanol-blended gasoline at 21.1 million lpd, jet fuel at 11.3 million lpd and fuel oil at 6.5 million lpd. The country produced 4.33 billion lpd or 909,223 bpd of gasoline in April, down 4.8% month-on-month and 5.2% year-on-year. (June 4, 2009)