India's Reliance Industries has announced plans to increase crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia as it moves towards becoming the world's largest refiner.

Citing the ongoing rise in demand for fuel across India and the rest of Asia, company president Ali al-Naimi has revealed that it is to increase purchases by more than 90,000 barrels a day.

This will account for 30 per cent of the 300,000 barrels a day increase in output recently announced by Saudi Arabia and the extra supplies are set to be processed at Reliance's Jamnagar refinery in the Gujarat region of India, Bloomberg has reported.

The news comes on the back of the publication of a new report from the consultants FACTS Global Energy, which shows that fuel demand across the Middle East and Asia is due to grow by 25 per cent to 39 million barrels a day over the next seven years.

Already this year China has increased crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia by 17 per cent as new refineries become operational, while Japan and South Korea are expected to follow suit within the next few months.