India’s fuel demand reached a 24-year high in February. Cheap Russian oil has also boosted industrial activity in the country. Fuel consumption rose more than 5% in February to 4.82 million barrels per day (18.5 million tonnes). This information has been revealed in the recorded data of the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the Indian Oil Ministry. PPAC was launched in 1998.

Petrol sales grew by 8.9% on an annual basis
Petrol sales rose 8.9% year-on-year to 2.8 million tonnes in February, while diesel consumption rose 7.5% to 6.98 million tonnes. According to the data, jet fuel sales increased by over 43% to 0.62 million tonnes. Cooking gas or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) sales declined by 0.1% to 2.39 million tonnes.

March demand to be 5.17 million bpd
Sales of bitumen, used to build roads, rose 21.5% in February compared to January, while fuel oil use declined a little over 5% in February. Kepler lead crude analyst Victor Katona said demand in March would top 5.17 million barrels per day (bpd), and fall to 5 million bpd in April-May due to a seasonal monsoon-driven slowdown.

Indian companies buying cheap oil from Russia
According to energy cargo tracker Vortexa, India bought an average of 1.19 million barrels of crude oil from Russia every day in December. A year before this, in December 2021, India used to buy only 36,255 barrels of oil per day from Russia. That is, the purchase of oil from Russia increased by about 32 times in a year.

India now imports 25% of its oil requirement from Russia. Till March 2022, India used to buy only a very small part of its requirement from Russia, but the situation started changing from April. In October, Russia overtook Iraq and Saudi Arabia in terms of selling oil to India.