India’s Fuel Demand Hits 24-Year High In February: Report

Indian fuel demand hit its highest level in at least 24 years in February 2023, as per the data showed on Thursday, with industrial activity in Asia’s third biggest economy boosted by Russian oil. 

As per the data, the consumption of fuel, rose by more than 5 percent to 4.82 million barrels per day in February, its 15th consecutive year-on-year rise. 

Demand was the highest in many years recorded in data complied by the Indian Oil Ministry’s  PPAC (Petroleum planning and Analysis Cell), as per Reuters report. 

This comes amid India cracked a deal with Russia and started importing additional quantities of oil at reasonable priceing. The strength highlights a combination of profitable refining from record Russia crude imports in February, total utilization for primary distillation across India and still-robust domestic consumption, said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler, as reported by Reuters. 

In March, the demand will reach 5.17 million barrels per day and then the second monsoon-driven slowdown will lead to it dropping to 5 million bpd in April-May, Katona forcasted. 

India’s sale of fuel jumped

As per Reuters report, the data shows that the sales of gasoline or petrol rose 8.9 percent year-on-year to 2.8 million tonnes in February, while diesel consumption climbed 7.5 percent to 6.98 million tonnes. While the sale of jet fuel jumped more than 43 percent to 0.62 million tonnes. 

Alan Gelder, VP Refining, Chemicals and Oil Markets at Wood Mackenzie stated that the strongest demand growth rate is projected to be in jet fuel in 2023, followed by gasoline and then diesel/gas oil. 

Gelder also stated, that while the fuel sales data showed total volumes of gasoline (motor spirit0 and diesel (HSD) fell in February relative in January, they grew strongly on a daily basis as February is a short month. 
On the other hand, sales of cooking gas, or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) slipped by 0.1 percent to 2.39 million tonnes. 

Sales of bitumen, which is used for building roads, jumped 21.5% month-on-month, while fuel oil use declined slightly more than 5% in February, compared with January, Reuters reported.