India on Thursday said the world should be thankful to it for its surplus fuel refining capacity, but for which global fuel prices would have been even higher.

“There is a shortfall in global refining capacity not been adequate investment in refining capacity addition globally in the past 20 years.

"This serious imbalance between refining capacity and demand is the primary reason for unacceptable high prices of gasoline and diesel the world over," said Petroleum Secretary

M S Srinivasan, who is here to participate in the World Petroleum Congress, even as crude prices rose to a record USD 145 a barrel today.

The country's strong reaction came after a report by the US-backed International Energy Agency questioned India's move to allow private sector refiner Reliance Industries to export fuel when the country was forced to import petroleum products to meet surging domestic demand.

"Here is one country that is refining more crude than is needed for its consumption, and resulting in correcting the supply imbalance globally," he said, noting that this surplus capacity has had a sobering impact on gasoline and diesel prices globally.

"I do not agree with the IEA's observation on our export oriented refineries," Srinivasan said.

He said the spread between raw material and finished products like gasoline and diesel is the result of lack of surplus refining capacity globally and this spread is rising due to lack of refining capacity addition elsewhere.

IEA had noted that India, whch imported 22.716 million tons of petroleum products in 2007-08, may not initially see much benefit from the (RPL) refinery start-up, given the export status that the refinery has.