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High Frequency Indicators · Fuel Demand
High Frequency Indicators · Energy · Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell

What India Runs On

Every month the country burns close to 20 million tonnes of petroleum products — diesel in trucks and tractors, petrol in cars and two-wheelers, LPG in kitchens, jet fuel in the sky. This tracks all twelve products, month by month, back to 1998: the boom years, the COVID collapse, and the slow death of kerosene. Pick a fuel and watch it move.

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In Plain Terms
What each product is, and what it is used for — India reports fuels by their trade names.
Fuels you use directly
Diesel (HSD)
High-Speed Diesel, the workhorse fuel — trucks, buses, tractors, railways, gensets and industry. India's largest petroleum product, about two-fifths of the barrel, and the one that moves the price of everything freight carries.
Petrol (MS)
Motor Spirit — the fuel for cars and two-wheelers, and the best read on personal mobility. It now includes the ethanol blended into it. The fastest-growing major fuel of the last three decades.
LPG
Liquefied Petroleum Gas — the cooking-gas cylinder, and piped kitchen gas. Its steady climb tracks the spread of clean cooking fuel to households; a large share is imported as finished gas.
Jet Fuel (ATF)
Aviation Turbine Fuel, what aircraft burn — the cleanest proxy for how much the country is flying, and the fuel behind your airfare.
Kerosene (SKO)
Superior Kerosene Oil, once the poor household's lamp-and-stove fuel, sold through ration shops — now almost fully phased out as LPG and electricity spread.
Industrial & specialty fuels
Naphtha
A light distillate used as feedstock for petrochemicals (plastics) and fertiliser, and as fuel for some power plants — an industrial, not a consumer, product.
Petcoke
Petroleum coke, a solid carbon fuel burned mainly by cement plants and heavy industry — a read on the construction cycle.
Furnace Oil (FO & LSHS)
Heavy residual fuel oil (with Low-Sulphur Heavy Stock) for industrial boilers, furnaces, ships and older power plants — a heavy-industry fuel in slow decline as gas and cleaner fuels replace it.
Bitumen
The tar that surfaces roads — its demand rises and falls sharply with the road-construction season.
Light Diesel Oil (LDO)
A heavier, cheaper cousin of diesel used in some industrial burners, irrigation pumps and gensets — a small, shrinking product.
Lubricants & Greases
Engine oils and greases that cut friction in vehicles and machinery — not a fuel, but a refined product the data tracks.
Others
A catch-all for the minor products — solvents, waxes, specialty oils and anything not listed separately.
PolityPolicy.com
by Tushar Gupta · India, in Numbers — No Rhetoric, Just Data
Source: Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC), Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas — Domestic Consumption of Petroleum Products (product-wise, monthly), historical consumption workbook. Figures are in '000 metric tonnes and represent market demand — sales by oil companies plus private direct imports. Monthly, April 1998 to March 2026; the most recent months are provisional. Retrieved July 2026.
High Frequency Indicators · India, in Numbers
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