Country's April fuel demand edges up 6.1% year-on-year

India's fuel consumption rose by 6.1% year-on-year in April, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the oil ministry showed on Tuesday.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

India is the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer. The data is a proxy for the country's oil demand.

KEY QUOTE

"The rise in total fuel consumption in April can be attributed to the increased activity in the run up to elections across the country," said Prashant Vasisht, vice president and co-head, corporate ratings at ICRA.

"We expect Indian fuel demand to grow by 3%-4%, with the GDP set to grow. The bulk of the rise will be lead by petrol and diesel demand. Air travel in India also has shown good growth."

BY THE NUMBERS

Total consumption totalled 19.86 million metric tons (4.85 million barrels per day) in April, up from 18.71 million tons last year, data showed.

Demand was down 5.8% on a monthly basis from the 21.09 million metric tons consumed in March.

Sales of diesel, mainly used by trucks and commercially run passenger vehicles, rose by 1.4% year-on-year to 7.93 million tons in April.

Sales of gasoline in April rose 14% from the previous year to 3.28 million tons.

Demand for bitumen, used for making roads, fell by over 5% annually.

Cooking gas, or liquefied petroleum gas sales rose by nearly 10% to 2.36 million tons, while naphtha sales gained by 3.9% to about 1.16 million tons, compared with last April, the data showed.

Fuel oil use decreased by more than 16% year-on-year in April.

CONTEXT

Asia's third-largest economy is the fastest growing among major peers and its GDP is expected to expand 6.5% this fiscal year.

Growth in India's manufacturing sector slowed marginally in April but remained robust thanks to strong demand, prompting firms to ramp up purchases of raw materials at a near-record pace, a business survey showed last week.