
India's fuel demand in May hit highest in over a year
India is the world's third-largest consumer and importer of oil. The data is a proxy for the country's oil demand.
On a yearly basis, fuel demand in May was up 5.7% from the previous month and 1.1% from 21.08 million tons in the same month last year, the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell's website showed.
Sales of gasoline, or petrol, rose 9.6% to 3.78 million tons, compared with 3.45 million tons last month, and were up 9.2% from levels a year ago.
Diesel consumption in May climbed 4% month-on-month to 8.59 million tons, and up 2.1% from year-ago levels.
Cooking gas, or liquefied petroleum gas, sales increased 10.4% on an annual basis to 2.66 million tons, while naphtha sales fell 8.3% compared with last year to 1.0 million tons.
On a monthly basis, LPG and naphtha sales rose 5.6% and 7.5%, respectively.
Sales of bitumen, used for making roads, remained largely unchanged in May, compared with April.
"Looking at product details, Indian demand saw strong growth for gasoline and aviation fuel, which speaks for mobility as the key factor supporting demand growth. Diesel demand expanded at a solid pace as well, but less than the first two," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.
"Assume weakness in the petrochemical sector is the main factor weighing on naphtha demand."
India's private sector activity accelerated at its fastest pace in over a year in May, driven by expansion in services even as price pressures intensified, a survey showed.
Several petrochemical producers in Asia plan to reconfigure their crackers to process more ethane to reduce costs and capitalise on rising U.S. supplies as they face thin margins and global oversupply, company executives said in May.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
12 minutes ago
- Reuters
Indian farmers accelerate summer crop sowing amid strong monsoon
MUMBAI, July 21 (Reuters) - Indian farmers have accelerated the planting of summer-sown crops such as paddy, soybeans, cotton and corn, following above-average monsoon rainfall in July which increased the moisture levels required for sowing, according to government data. The monsoon is the lifeblood of India's nearly $4 trillion economy, delivering almost 70% of the rainfall needed to water farms and replenish aquifers and reservoirs. Nearly half of India's farmland is not irrigated and depends on the annual June-September rains for crop growth. The country has so far received 6% more rainfall than normal since the start of monsoon season on June 1, which helped farmers to plant summer crops on 70.83 million hectares (175 million acres) by July 18, up 4.1% from the last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare. Farmers have planted 17.67 million hectares with rice paddy, up 12.4% on the same period last year, as a hike in support prices prompted farmers to expand the area. India is the world's biggest exporter of rice and the top importer of edible oils such as palm oil and soyoil. Farmers planted soybean on 11.17 million hectares, down from last year's 11.9 million hectares but having accelerated in the last week. Corn was planted on 7.1 million hectares, up from 6.17 million a year earlier. The cotton area was 3.4% lower at 9.86 million hectares, having also seen an increase in the past few days, while pulses planting rose by 2.3% from a year ago to 8.2 million hectares. The farm ministry keeps updating the provisional sowing figures as it gathers more information from the state governments. Farmers are inclined to expand the area under paddy as the government buys large quantities at state-fixed support prices, which is not the case for other crops, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm. "So far, the weather's been pretty good for crops, except in a few parts of north-eastern India. If the monsoon stays strong next month, we could be looking at a bumper harvest across the country," he said.


Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Jane Street gets approval to resume trading in India after $567 million deposit
July 21 (Reuters) - India's market regulator said on Monday it has lifted trading restrictions on Jane Street after the U.S. high-frequency trading firm deposited $567 million. The Securities and Exchange Board of India had in an interim order on July 3 barred the firm from trading securities in the Indian market, saying some of its trading strategies were manipulative and led to losses for retail investors. The regulator froze $567 million of its funds, with a condition that Jane Street could resume trading if an equivalent amount was deposited in an account that gives the regulator rights over the money until its investigation is complete. SEBI said on Monday it has directed the National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange to closely monitor the activity of the U.S.-based quant trading firm. The regulator had sent an email to the firm on Friday informing them about lifting the restrictions, Reuters reported earlier in the day, citing two sources who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. The two stock exchanges are yet to facilitate Jane Street's buying and selling of Indian securities, one of the sources said. "While the firm has been allowed to resume trading in India, it has given an undertaking to SEBI that it will not trade in options. The firm also does not intend to trade in cash till it has explained its trades to SEBI," the second sources told Reuters.


Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
WTO reverses parts of previous decision in EU-China intellectual property dispute
July 21 (Reuters) - World Trade Organization arbitrators on Monday reversed part of a previous panel decision that had rejected the European Union's claims that China had violated the global watchdog's rules on intellectual property. In April, a WTO panel rejected the EU's complaint, lodged in 2022, that China had violated the global watchdog's IP rules over patents for 3G, 4G and 5G mobile technology. However, it did say that China had failed to comply with all WTO transparency obligations. The EU appealed the case at the Multi-Party Appeal Arbitration Arrangement - a surrogate for the WTO's Appellate Body which was shuttered in 2019 after the United States repeatedly blocked judge appointments. On Monday, the arbitrators reversed part of the previous panel decision and found that the Chinese courts' prohibition of patent holders to enforce their patent rights in countries outside of China, through the use of anti-suit injunctions, was not consistent with Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights rules concerning patent rights. The arbitrators upheld the previous findings on four issues but reversed the Panel's findings on three issues. It has given China 90 days to remedy its measures to comply with WTO rules.