Oil strike pushes Essar's daily retail sales

New Delhi, Jan 8 (IANS) Private retail outlet operator Essar Oil Thursday saw its daily sales jump in its daily sales after the ongoing oil sector strike hit supplies to petrol pumps around the country.

'Yesterday (Wednesday) saw normal operations, but today, we have seen a sharp rise in demand,' a senior Essar Oil official told IANS. Essar operates about 1,000 petroleum retail outlets around the country.

The petroleum ministry has asked the country's two private refiners, Essar and Reliance Industries, to meet any shortfall that state-owned oil companies may face.

'In the last two days, only HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corp) has loaded from our refineries,' he said. HPCL employees have not joined the indefinite strike call by the Oil Sector Officers Association.

Besides Essar, Shell India operates about 50 outlets. Reliance Industries, which operates the world's largest refinery at Jamnagar, is yet to reopen its retail outlets.

Due to the strike, most of the public sector refineries have been working at less than capacity. For instance, the largest oil marketing company, Indian Oil, said its seven refineries were working at 40 percent of their capacity.