(FE)
India’s fuel demand fell 6.1% in August compared with the same month last year. Consumption of fuel, a proxy for oil demand, totalled 15.75 million tonnes in August, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry showed on Tuesday. Sales of gasoline, or petrol, were 0.8% lower from a year earlier at 2.19 million tonnes. Cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sales increased 11.8% to 2.06 million tonnes. Naphtha sales fell 7.6% to 1.06 million tonnes. Sales of bitumen, used for making roads, were up 8.5%. Fuel oil use fell 6.9%.
While India’s fuel demand grew by over 1% in July as consumption of diesel and petrol rose, government data showed. Fuel consumption in July totalled 15.8 million tonnes as compared to 15.63 million tonnes in the same month of 2016, data from the PPAC of the oil ministry showed. The growth was higher than the 0.4% recorded in June when consumption of industrial fuel had dipped.