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Delhi. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumption in India declined by 13 percent in March due to supply constraints to the Middle East conflict. This has impacted availability for both home kitchens and commercial customers. This information has been received from official data. LPG consumption in March was 23.79 lakh tonnes, which is 12.8 percent less than the figure of 27.29 lakh tonnes in the same period last year. India meets 60 percent of its LPG requirement through imports. A large part of it comes from the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz closed following US and Israeli attacks on Iran and retaliatory Iranian action. Due to supply disruptions from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the government had cut LPG supplies to hotels and industries to maintain the availability of cooking gas in households.

According to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the Petroleum Ministry, the supply of LPG cylinders to domestic declined by 8.1 per cent to 22.19 lakh tonnes in March, while the supply of LPG cylinders to non-domestic users declined by 48 per cent. There was a huge decline of 75.5 percent in bulk LPG sales. These PPAC figures come at a time when the government is continuously claiming that LPG supply is normal and all the needs of domestic users are being met.

To meet the shortfall, the government had directed refineries to shift gas from petrochemical production to domestic use to increase LPG production. Due to this, domestic LPG production increased to 14 lakh tonnes in March from 11 lakh tonnes a year ago. With this increase, LPG production in the entire financial year 2025-26 increased from 12.8 million tonnes in the last two financial years to 13.1 million tonnes. Despite the month of March being an exception, LPG consumption increased by six percent in the last financial year to more than 33.2 million tonnes.

LPG consumption has increased continuously in recent years. The reason for this is that the government is emphasizing on the use of clean fuel instead of wood and other polluting fuels. Due to the closure of airspace in many Gulf countries due to the war, consumption of jet fuel or ATF remained almost stable at 8,07,000 tonnes in March, compared to 8,01,000 tonnes a year ago.

However, there was a good increase in the sales of petrol and diesel during this period. Petrol sales increased by 7.6 per cent to 37.8 lakh tonnes, while diesel consumption increased by 8.1 per cent to 87.27 lakh tonnes. ATF sales increased by two percent to 91.61 lakh tonnes in the entire financial year. At the same time, petrol consumption increased by 6.5 percent to 4.25 crore tonnes. During this period, diesel consumption increased by 3.6 percent to more than 9.47 crore tonnes.

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