Fuel consumption in February: Diesel slides 8.6%, petrol falls marginally

The consumption of petrol fell by 2 per cent and that of diesel by 8.6 per cent in February in comparison with the year-ago month, based on gross sales information of the three state-owned oil advertising and marketing corporations (OMCs) — Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
Petrol consumption declined year-on-year for the primary time since August, with costs of each petrol and diesel hiked by about Rs 5 per litre final month. Petrol was priced at Rs 91.17 per litre and diesel at Rs 81.47 per litre in Delhi on Monday, with no hike of their costs for the second straight day.
Petrol gross sales by public sector OMCs fell to 2,219 TMT final month from 2,264 TMT in February 2020, partially because of a 29-day February final yr, based on business sources who famous that barring the distinction of in the future, petrol gross sales had been largely on par with year-ago interval.
The consumption of diesel — which fell to five,811 thousand metric tonnes (TMT) from 6,356 TMT a year-ago — could have been affected by the steep hike in value over the past 4 months, based on specialists, with industries probably switching out diesel for different fuels. Public transport nonetheless working at under pre-Covid ranges too is a key contributor to decrease diesel gross sales, business sources mentioned.

Meanwhile, the value of LPG — which has seen a pointy enhance since final yr — was hiked by an extra Rs 25 on Monday to Rs 819 per 14.2 kg cylinder, up from Rs 694 firstly of February.