NEW DELHI: India’s petroleum consumption is presently about 5 million barrels per day, which is rising at 3%, increased than the common international progress price of round 1%, Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri mentioned, including that the federal government has managed international power challenges “very nicely” by shielding the financial system from vagaries of worldwide oil costs.
“Authorities of India has navigated the worldwide power challenges very nicely, insulating the growing financial system from the rising international crude and fuel costs. At current, 5 million barrels of petroleum is being consumed in our nation each day and it is usually growing by 3%, which is increased than the worldwide common of round 1%,” an official assertion quoting Puri mentioned.
The minister is in Jaipur to attend the three-day South Asian Geoscience Convention, Geo India 2022 the place he offered the Life Time Achievement Award to veteran geologist and former exploration director of ONGC, Shyam Vyas Rao, it mentioned.
In line with official knowledge, India’s whole petroleum consumption in 2019-20 was 194.3 million metric tonnes (MMT), which rose by about 5% to 204.2 MMT. The annualised consumption progress in April-September 2022 was 107.7 MMT, about 13.6% progress as in comparison with 95 MMT within the April-September months of 2022, in accordance with provisional knowledge of the Petroleum Planning and Evaluation Cell (PPAC).
“This progress was led by 18.5% progress in MS [motor spirit or petrol], 16.1% in HSD [high speed diesel] & 72.1% in ATF [aviation turbine fuel] consumption in the course of the half 12 months [or 2022-23]. The consumption of petroleum merchandise throughout Sept 2022 recorded a progress of 8.1% with a quantity of 17.2 MMT in comparison with the identical interval of the earlier 12 months,” it mentioned in one among its stories.
India is the world’s third-largest importer of crude oil after the US and China, which imports about 55% of its pure fuel necessities and 85% of the crude oil it processes.
After worldwide oil costs soared due to the Ukraine conflict and sanctions in opposition to Russia, Indian state-run oil advertising corporations (OMCs) have frozen pump costs of petrol and diesel since April 7 to save lots of folks from a spike in vehicle fuels, which have an inflationary influence.
The federal government additionally slashed excise responsibility to calm costs and lately offered ₹22,000 crore one-time grant to public sector OMCs for not passing the worldwide costs of cooking fuel to folks. Whereas cooking fuel charges jumped by over 300% globally, the three OMCs – Indian Oil Company, Bharat Petroleum Company and Hindustan Petroleum Company – raised its price by solely 72% in two years (June 2020 to June 2022). To guard shoppers from rising worldwide oil costs, the Centre additionally slashed excise duties on petrol and diesel in November 2021 ( ₹5 per litre on petrol and ₹10 a litre on diesel) and Could 2022 ( ₹8 a litre on petrol and ₹6 on diesel). Whereas many states adopted the Centre by lowering the VAT (value-added tax) on fuels, some states didn’t sacrifice their revenues.
On the inaugural session of Geo India 2022, Puri spoke concerning the authorities’s resolve to scale back dependence on fossil fuels by different power sources.
“The ethanol-blend share in petrol has elevated from 0.67% in 2013 to 10% in Could 2022, i.e., 5 months forward of schedule,” the assertion quoting Puri mentioned.