[TusharK]

India’s petrol consumption has more than doubled over the past decade. According to data published by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the annual petrol consumption rose by 117% between 2013-14 and 2023-24.



Petrol is the fuel of choice for passenger vehicles in India. Sales of vehicles have shot up over the last decade, especially since the pandemic. The increasing demand for passenger vehicles has led to a sharp rise in demand for petrol as well.

Even though more and more consumers are opting for petrol-powered vehicles lately, diesel consumption has also gone up 31% over the last decade.

The second-highest levels of petrol and diesel consumption were recorded in March 2024. As per the data, total fuel demand in India stood at 4.99 million barrels per day (mbpd) in March, which is slightly lower than the 5.02 mbpd recorded in the same period last year. Petrol sales in March 2024 were up by 6.9% to 3.32 million tonnes, while diesel sales increased by 3.1% to 8.04 million tonnes.

India’s fuel demand reached a record high of 4.67 mbpd in FY2024, up from 4.48 mbpd. Petrol and diesel sales increased by 6.4% and 4.4% YoY, respectively.

Source: HT Auto

Link to Team-BHP News

[Shreyans_Jain]

More than cars, it is the two wheeler segment which is the biggest consumer of petrol. They might buy usually Rs100-500 bucks worth of petrol at a time, but there are like 200 million of them across the country. India literally moves on two wheels.

Diesel is consumed almost exclusively by logistics, industry and backup power generation. Diesel growth = economic growth

[SmartCat]

This page has lots of data points for petrol & diesel sales:
https://pib.gov.in/newsite/printrele...x?relid=102799

Two-wheelers account for 61.42% of total Petrol sales while that by Cars is 34.33%. 3-wheelers account for only 2.34%. In states like Odisha (82.3%), Bihar (75.2%) and Rajasthan (72.9%), consumption of Petrol by two-wheelers exceeds 70%.

For diesel, commercial applications (transport/agriculture/power supply) constitute 85% of sales:

[aayusht]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

This page has lots of data points for petrol & diesel sales:
https://pib.gov.in/newsite/printrele...x?relid=102799

Is the date in that article 28-January-2014? So, is it likely that for 2024 the data points might tell a different story?

Originally Posted by TusharK

India’s petrol consumption has more than doubled over the past decade. According to data published by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the annual petrol consumption rose by 117% between 2013-14 and 2023-24.


Source: HT Auto

Link to Team-BHP News

If I am reading the data correct - I believe the article says 117% absolute rise between 2013-14 to 2023-24; that translates to an annual growth rate of 8% (CARG of 8%).

However, the rise between 2022-23 to 2023-24 has been 4%, so effectively, the demand for fuel has actually slowed in the last year in comparison to the years prior.

This could be possible due to:

1. Rise in EVs
2. Slow down of the revenge tourism that was visible immediately post Covid
3. Openness to public transport since Covid concerns have started dissipating. I see more and more colleagues willing to take Blusmart/Uber/Metros

Another factor to note - we dont have visibility of demand pre-covid and post-covid to factor in the fluctuations.

Just my 2 cents - based on my understanding of the data.

Dont mind being corrected

[Noctis]

Originally Posted by aayusht

However, the rise between 2022-23 to 2023-24 has been 4%, so effectively, the demand for fuel has actually slowed in the last year in comparison to the years prior.

This could be possible due to:
Rise in EVs
...

One additional factors to consider is the rise of CNG vehicles during this period. CNG sales for PVs for FY23 stood at around 320k units, almost double from 168k units sold during FY21. In comparison it was 147k even 6 years prior to that during FY15.

So the last two years have seen an unprecedented boom in this segment, probably due to petrol crossing the Rs. 100 mark and diesel no longer being an alternative for many.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by Noctis

One additional factors to consider is the rise of CNG vehicles during this period. CNG sales for PVs for FY23 stood at around 320k units, almost double from 168k units sold during FY21. In comparison it was 147k even 6 years prior to that during FY15.

So the last two years have seen an unprecedented boom in this segment, probably due to petrol crossing the Rs. 100 mark and diesel no longer being an alternative for many.

Factory fit CNG sales are just the tip of the iceberg. The real scale of CNG market is the aftermarket fitment vehicles. The people who go the CNG way run their cars on gas as much as possible. This actually reduces the offtake of petrol.

I see slowing growth of petrol sales over the coming 10 years, as a good portion of two wheeler market will be captured by electrics. Already, we are close to price parity between EV and petrol scooters. Natural inflection point is not too far away.

Volumes of diesel though will only continue to rise.

[antz.bin]

10 years ago, the cheapest sedan with a Diesel costed 6 lakh. Now it costs 56 lakhs.

10 years ago, we had hatchbacks as small as the Chevy Beat selling with Diesel engines. In the meantime, Celerio and Tiago also came with Diesel options. Now, the solitary option in the country for a Diesel hatchback is the Tata Altroz. It also happens to be the least priced Diesel car sold in India.

These cars have all been replaced by NA and Turbo Petrol options. There are 33 petrol car models (including the petrol Altroz) currently sold for a price lower than the base Altroz Diesel. The closest priced one being the Base Ertiga.

All of this unfulfilled demand is being diverted towards Petrol and CNG depending on use case. Also, with the advent of low fuel economy of turbo petrols being acceptable in the higher segments (instead of being dominated by VAG Diesels with their insane fuel economy), 4-wheelers across segments are consuming a lot more petrol and a lot less diesel than it did 10 years back.

Coming to 2 wheelers, the default option for a youngster 10 years back was a Pulsar 150 with 45-50kmpl. It is now a RE 350 with 35kmpl. The first KTM 390 motorcycle was launched in 2013. Prior to that happening, the highest capacity non-RE motorcycle made in India was the Honda CBR250R. That was the one and only 250 sold in India.

If you look around now, 350cc Royal Enfields outsell the 150cc segment. There are 15 distinct 250cc motorcycles to choose from on sale currently in India. The RS457, Himalayan 452, Hero/Harley 440, Triumph/KTM 400 are all made in India and exported to the world and to top it all, the highest capacity motorcycles currently made in India are now the Royal Enfield 650s. I myself upgraded from a Pulsar 220 (38-40kmpl) to a Speed 400 (27-30kmpl). All of these larger motorcycles use up more fuel than the 100-150cc commuters that were more common 10 years back.

And finally the 2 biggest factors of them all!
1. Our cities are much bigger now than 10 years back. Traffic has increased leaps and bounds in 10 years. We are traveling more and more to get to our workplaces (minus the folks that are still WFH).
2. There are more of us around. The population of the country has increased by a good 12% in the past 10 years.

All of these factors can amply explain this increased petrol consumption.

[Livnletcarsliv]

I guess this data of 117% of increase in petrol consumption should be taken with a pinch of salt as it is just a data (number) and nothing else. What is the objective/point of publishing such a data ?

My few cents here are, in these 10 years,
1. What is the overall population increase?
2. What is the increase in urban population alone?
3. What is the size of the urban expansion?
4. What is the increase in the 2 wheeler sales? Especially (as some one mentioned) >150-200cc bikes.
5. Govt policies have literally eliminated the diesel options from the many mass market brands, especially the largest 4 wheeler brand (Maruti). Read - Nissan, Renault, VW, Audi, Skoda, Volvo, etc.
6. What is the infrastructure improvement/expansion in the entire country, especially in urban places? For eg - Chennai city today is more congested than ever in the history.
7. Highways/expressways have become better. So are the average speeds and the average distance of any travel.
8. What is the increase in travellers per se as well as increase in the bikers?

[GreenerPlanet]

One of the largest diesel consumers was the Indian Railways.

In the last 9.5 years, about 40 thousand km of rail lines have been electrified in India, tripling the pre-2014 count.

Taken from the Indian Railway web page,

every 100 route kilometers electrified section results in saving of annual consumption of more than four million liters of diesel oil

We should have seen a very large shift in diesel consumption just from the Indian Railways and this data should have been available with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

It would have been informative to get the exact numbers.

[Kum_CarFreak]

Adding to above pointers, COVID played its role wherein, for the first 8 odd months, public transport was completely frozen and this cornered every common man to go for a private vehicle, either 2W or 4W and now the roads are flooded with vehicles, a greater portion of who don't even know the right way of riding and driving.

I feel this too as a contributing factor for the topic being discussed.