India’s annual oil usage falls for the first time in 21 years

India’s overall petroleum demand in 2020 fell for the first time in more than two decades as the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered businesses and factories, crimping the appetite of one of the world’s biggest consumers.

Demand for total petroleum products — including diesel, gasoline and jet fuel — slid 10.8 per cent from a year earlier, the first annual contraction in data going back to 1999, according to Bloomberg calculations of provisional figures published by the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell. Consumption was also at a five-year low of 193.4 million tons.

Fuel demand from Asia’s second-biggest oil importer collapsed by as much as 70 per cent after it embarked on one of the world’s most stringent lockdowns in March. The drop resulted in a sharp cutback in crude processing and operations at petrochemical plants.