Fuel sales slip in July as monsoon dampens demand

NEW DELHI: India’s diesel consumption fell 13% and petrol gross sales slipped 5% in July sequentially from a month in the past despite a pointy uptick in automotive gross sales as monsoon dampened demand by lowering farm sector offtake and impacting inter-state motion of products and passengers in a number of elements of the nation.
However the excellent news for refiners and gas retailers is that the consumption of each fuels remained effectively above the pre-pandemic ranges, underlining the seasonality of the dip.
Based on business information, diesel gross sales in July have been 5% and petrol gross sales 16% increased than the identical month of 2019. In comparison with July 2021, diesel and petrol consumption was up 17.7% and 12%, respectively.
Sequentially, jet gas gross sales suffered a marginal dip of 1% in July however was 79% greater than July 2021 on tailwind supplied by continued momentum in vacation season journey. In comparison with July 2019, nonetheless, gross sales have been down 14%.
LPG consumption, principally used as family cooking gasoline, jumped 8.7% sequentially and 11.9% from July 2019. Sequentially, the expansion in consumption was a modest 4% over June.
Diesel and petrol gross sales had jumped 35% and 28.9%, respectively, in June on the again of a surge in vacation journey and demand from the farm sector. Sequentially too, June diesel gross sales had proven a achieve of 11% over Might and petrol 3%.
Amid such sharp uptick in demand, migration of bulk customers to shops because of a large worth differential due to a freeze on petrol and diesel charges had led to shortages in a number of states throughout June. As non-public refiners starved their retailers of merchandise to chop losses, the federal government expanded USO (common service obligation) to drive them to keep up pump operations and later slapped export tax.
Gasoline gross sales sometimes fall throughout the monsoon as rains decrease farm sector offtake, disrupts infrastructure development work and inter-state freight and passenger motion in lots of elements of the nation.