(ET)
Demand for diesel will rise threefold and petrol three and a half times by 2040 in India, an official panel has forecast, allaying fears among industry executives that the push for renewables and electric vehicles could dent oil demand.
The official panel, constituted in mid-2016 and comprising petroleum and natural gas ministry officials and senior executives of state and private refiners, has finalised a report after studying different scenarios factoring in existing and potential technological and policy changes. The committee has considered three potential scenarios, namely ‘trend’, ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’, according to the report drafted by Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the ministry.
The trend scenario or the ‘business as usual case’ captures the demand situation where coal, oil and natural gas remain the predominant fuel in the economy, with moderate efforts towards fuel switching.
