According to data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, India’s petroleum product exports increased slightly by 1.5% to 47.5 million tonnes between April and December, from 46.8 million tonnes during the same period. Motor spirit, pet coke, and fuel oil shipments were the main drivers of the increase in exports. However, shipments of petroleum products fell from 5.8 million tons in December 2023 to 5.4 million tons in December 2024.
Between April and December 2024, imports of refined oil products rose 7% to 38.5 million tons, up from 36 million tons during the same time frame. Additionally, the import bill for these goods increased from $17.1 billion to $18.2 billion during the same period in the prior fiscal year.
During the first nine months of the current fiscal year, India consumed 178.5 million tonnes of petroleum products, up from 172.6 million tonnes during the same period last fiscal year. This increase was ascribed to increased demand for aviation turbine fuel (ATF), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), motor spirit, and diesel.
LPG and motor spirit saw growth of 6.7% and 8.0%, respectively, while ATF saw a 9.8% increase in demand. Compared to the previous year, diesel usage increased by 2.2% between April and December. In FY26, India anticipates that domestic demand for petroleum products will hit a record 252.9 million tons.
India exported 1.37 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum products in December, up 3.1% from 1.33 million bpd in December 2023. Additionally, this was a 4.5% increase over November 2024, when exports were 1.31 million bpd.
Although experts anticipate a glut of supply in the oil market starting in 2025, growing geopolitical unpredictability and a poor forecast for demand from the world’s largest consumers may have a detrimental effect on India’s exports in the future.
Petroleum products are mostly supplied by India to Asia and Europe. Notably, to restrict Russia’s income during its war with Ukraine, the European Union (EU) imposed an embargo and price ceiling on Russian crude oil imports in December 2022. However, the prohibitions did not apply to refined petroleum products made from Russian crude.
