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% in March quarter, its slowest pace in more than four year, 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 by a robust 11.32% 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% to 7.78 million tonnes.
Cooking gas, or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), rose marginally to 2.06 million tonnes.
Naphtha sales increased by 7.73% to 1.09 million tonnes and sales of bitumen, used for making roads, were down by 8.4%.
India revised down its fuel consumption for April to 17.67 million tonnes, a decline of 0.6% from a year earlier, the data showed.
