A high powered committee on restructing of the petroleum sector recommended mergers, strategic alliances and cross holding to equity of four standalone refineries to enable these to survive beyond 2002 in the deregulated oil market. In its recommendations, submitted to Petroleum Minister V K Ramamurthy, the committee headed by International Management Institute Director Nitish Sengupta said,"It will not be possible for any standalone refinery (national oil companies) to survive on their own after the year 2002.