Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country’s biggest refiner and fuel retailer, doesn’t expect its capacity utilization to return to pre-pandemic levels in the near future, IOC’s chairman S.M. Vaidya told reporters on Friday. IOC had been gradually boosting its refinery capacity utilization since May, but utilization has been down in recent weeks as many states in India re-imposed localized lockdowns, after the nationwide lockdown in April-May, following a surge in COVID-19 cases. IOC’s capacity utilization has dropped to 75 percent these days, from around 93 percent in the first week of July, Indian media quoted the company as saying alongside its results for the first quarter of its 2020-2021 financial year. In May, India’s fuel demand picked up pace from the April lows, and IOC began to gradually boost operations across its refineries, aiming to raise utilization to 80 percent by the end of May, compared to 45 percent […]