India\u2019s fuel consumption in June rose by 17.9% from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, as demand in the world\u2019s No.3 oil consumer headed back towards pre-pandemic levels.
Global oil prices have surged in response to concerns about tight supplies and disruption linked to oil producer Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, but Indian consumers have to an extent been sheltered as Indian refiners have bought cheaper Russian fuel the West has shunned.
Consumption of fuel, a proxy for oil demand, totalled 18.67 million tonnes, data from the Indian oil ministry\u2019s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed.
\u201cIndian diesel and gasoline demand was relatively low in May-September 2021. As a result, around 18% increase is from a lower base,\u201d said Refinitiv analyst Ehsan Ul Haq, but added pent-up demand could drive a recovery to pre-pandemic levels in the next few months.
\u201cThe purchasing power of India\u2019s middle class is rising in spite of recent spike in food and energy prices,\u201d he said, although he did not rule out some demand destruction.
Diesel consumption rose 23.9% year-on-year to 7.68 million tonnes and was up about 21.9% from two years ago.
Sales of gasoline, or petrol, were 23.2% higher from a year earlier at 2.97 million tonnes.
India\u2019s gasoil demand rose rapidly during the first two weeks of June, and long queues appeared at some fuel stations as concerns grew over supply.
\u201cWe expect genuine strength coming from middle distillate demand,\u201d said Viktor Katona, co-head of crude analysis at Kpler.
This would come from general demand, with \u201cIndia quite the exception in more or less keeping fuel prices intact, largely thanks to its widespread buying of heavily discounted Russian crude,\u201d downstream expansions and higher exports, Katona added.
Indian private refiners such as Reliance and Nayara have been among the biggest buyers this year of discounted Russian supplies.
However, the country last week to try to increase local supply imposed a windfall tax on producers and refiners that have boosted product exports to gain from higher overseas margins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s fuel consumption in June rose by 17.9% from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, as demand in the world\u2019s No.3 oil consumer headed back towards pre-pandemic levels.Global oil prices have surged in response to concerns about tight supplies and disruption linked to oil producer Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, but Indian consumers have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[667],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}