India’s fuel demand in May was unchanged from a year earlier, preliminary government data showed on Saturday, indicating a continued slowdown in various sectors, including industrial output.
Fuel consumption, a proxy for oil demand, was 18.61 million tonnes in May, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry showed on Saturday.
India’s economy grew 5.8 per cent in the March quarter, its slowest pace in more than four years, falling behind China’s pace for the first time in nearly two years.
Several indicators — automobile sales, rail freight and domestic air traffic — indicate a slowdown in domestic consumption. India has not yet released industrial output data for May.
Sales of gasoline, or petrol, rose a robust 11.32 per cent to 2.73 million tonnes in May as the narrowing price gap with diesel is pushing motorists to opt for petrol-driven vehicles. Diesel sales rose 2.84 per cent to 7.78 million tonnes.
Cooking gas, or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), rose marginally to 2.06 million tonnes.
Naphtha sales increased 7.73 per cent to 1.09 million tonnes and sales of bitumen, used for making roads, were down 8.4 per cent. India revised down its fuel consumption for April to 17.67 million tonnes, a decline of 0.6 per cent from a year earlier, the data showed.
