Thursday, March 28

India’s August fuel demand steady mom, diesel consumption drops


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India’s August fuel consumption was

little changed from the previous month, government data released

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on Wednesday showed, even as diesel demand dropped to the lowest

this year during monsoon season in the world’s No. 3 oil

consumer.

Fuel consumption, a proxy for oil demand, rose 16.3% to

17.81 million tonnes from August 2021, but was up only

marginally from 17.61 million tonnes in July, data from the oil

ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) showed.

“Indian products demand has effectively stagnated in August,

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remaining well above last year readings but showing no

substantial m/m change,” said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst

at Kpler, noting that demand is typically the lowest in August.

“With heavy rains restricting demand from the farm sector

and curbing mobility, the fact that diesel demand dropped to

slightly above 1.5 million b/d is a direct consequence of that,

dropping to the lowest reading this year, a 5% decrease from

July,” Katona added.

Sales of gasoline, or petrol, rose 11.6% from a year ago to

3 million tonnes.

Sales of diesel, or gasoil, rose about 13% year-on-year to

6.34 million tones, but fell about 5% from July.

Preliminary sales data earlier this month showed gasoil

sales by Indian state retailers in August fell from a month

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earlier as monsoon rains restricted mobility while high

inflation curtailed overall demand.

But with the Indian economy still expanding, fuel demand

should steadily improve, said Edward Moya, senior analyst with

OANDA.

Cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), sales grew 3%

to 2.39 million tonnes year-on-year, while naphtha sales jumped

23.5% to 1.16 million tonnes.

Sales of bitumen, used for making roads, rose about 51%,

while fuel oil use advanced 16.5% in August.

DOMESTIC SALES (in million tonnes):

2022 2022 2022 2021 2021 2021

August July June August July June

Diesel 6.34 6.64 7.68 5.61 6.14 6.20

Petrol 3.00 2.81 2.97 2.69 2.63 2.41

LPG 2.39 2.41 2.23 2.32 2.37 2.25

Naphtha 1.16 1.14 1.05 0.94 1.22 1.19

Jet fuel 0.60 0.58 0.59 0.38 0.32 0.26

Kerosene 0.03 0.02 0.05 0.13 0.13 0.14

Fuel Oil 0.60 0.56 0.54 0.52 0.47 0.50

Bitumen 0.47 0.44 0.70 0.31 0.44 0.58

TOTAL 17.81 17.61 18.68 15.31 16.00 15.84

(Reporting by Brijesh Patel and Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru;

Editing by Alex Richardson and Richard Chang)



financialpost.com