ndia’s LPG usage during May this year declined by 4 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) and 19 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 2.12 million tonnes (mt) on a provisional basis
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India’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumption slipped to its lowest in more than 5 years as the West Asia conflict choked up almost half of the imports of the world’s second-largest consumer of the critical cooking and heating fuel.According to the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC), India’s LPG usage during May this year declined by 4 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) and 19 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 2.12 million tonnes (mt) on a provisional basis.This is the lowest monthly consumption in the last 62 months. The lowest before this was in Covid-impacted April 2021 (2.10 mt). Before 2021, the lowest consumption was recorded in April 2020 (2.11 mt), June 2019 (1.79 mt) and April 2019 (1.9 mt).LPG consumption generally declines during the summer. India is currently consuming around 72,000 tonnes per day (TPD) against the usual demand of roughly 80,000 TPD. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the country’s average LPG usage stood at roughly 90,991 TPD in FY26, 85,830 TPD in FY25 and 81,271 TPD in FY24.The decline in consumption is due to the lack of availability of LPG. India imports 60 per cent of its domestic requirement, of which 90 per cent comes from the Middle East Gulf (MEG) region, with most of the cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz (SoH).India has curtailed 20-30 per cent of the LPG supply to industry in order to supply 100 per cent of the requirement from households, hospitals, educational institutions and the transport sector as supplies fall short.For instance, the International Energy Agency (IEA) pegs that the closure of the SoH adversely impacted 430,000 barrels per day (kb/d) of LPG cargoes during March-April 2026 to India.In fact, closure of SoH upended almost one-third of the global LPG supply. For comparison, the volume of LPG exported through the strait fell by around 80 per cent, dropping from 1.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) on average in 2025 to 0.3 mb/d. Almost all of the LPG exported from the Middle East in 2025 was delivered to Asia.The West Asia conflict and choking of LPG supplies have pushed up prices, which is impacting the profits of PSU oil marketing companies (OMCs).On Monday, the Oil Ministry said that state-controlled OMCs are facing an under-recovery of around ₹650 per 14.2 kg LPG cylinder for domestic consumers.The Ministry has prioritised the production of cooking fuel in refineries to deal with the shortfall in supplies. In the last week of May 2026, LPG production hit a record 52,000 tonnes per day (TPD) from roughly 46,000 TPD earlier in the month as refineries such as Vadinar resumed operations following a maintenance shutdown in April 2026.Published on June 2, 2026
