DEMAND OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

India’s consumption of petroleum products staged a sharp revival in June, touching 88% of pre-Covid-19 levels, the petroleum ministry said on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: India’s consumption of petroleum products staged a sharp revival in June, touching 88% of pre-Covid-19 levels, the petroleum ministry said on Wednesday.

Demand for bitumen, used in road construction, also surged 32% year-on-year last month in line with an increase in road construction activity. India’s power and overall energy demand, which slumped due to the lockdown, is also slowly returning to pre-lockdown levels.

Consumption of energy, especially electricity and refinery products, is typically linked to overall demand in an economy.

“India’s overall petroleum products consumption, which had nosedived in last week of

March and April this year, is now steadily getting to its prelockdown levels in June’20, as emanating from the PSUs’ (IOC, BPCL and HPCL) sales figures,” according to a ministry statement.

“On Industry basis, in June’20, the petrol consumption has reached to 85% of last year level (2.0 MMT in June’20 vs 2.4 MMT in June’19) and diesel reached to 82% (5.5 MMT in June’20 vs 6.7 MMT in June’19) compared to last year level,” the statement said.

“With timely arrival of monsoon and pick-up in agricultural activities during kharif season, there was marked acceleration in diesel consumption and gained a 96% on April ’20 level volume (5.5 MMT in June’20 from 2.8 MMT in Apr’20),” the statement added.