India’s oil industry struggles to predict demand recovery in pandemic
Indian energy demand is taking a big hit as Covid-19 runs rampant across the country. But uncertainty around when the virus wave will subside and the lack of a unified government response has left the oil industry in the dark as to how quickly consumption might pick up again.
The demand destruction over the last couple of months has been less severe than last year, when the government imposed the world’s biggest national lockdown. However, the lack of a coordinated effort to shut down activity to halt the virus’s spread will likely lead to a longer, although less pronounced, economic slump.
Read more about India s oil industry struggles to predict demand recovery in pandemic on Business Standard. Diesel and gasoline, which account for more than half of oil consumption in India, are bearing the brunt of lockdowns.
by Bloomberg
|Thursday, May 27, 2021
Indian energy demand is taking a big hit as Covid-19 runs rampant across the country.
(Bloomberg) Indian energy demand is taking a big hit as Covid-19 runs rampant across the country. But uncertainty around when the virus wave will subside and the lack of a unified government response has left the oil industry in the dark as to how quickly consumption might pick up again.
The demand destruction over the last couple of months has been less severe than last year, when the government imposed the world’s biggest national lockdown. However, the lack of a coordinated effort to shut down activity to halt the virus’s spread will likely lead to a longer, although less pronounced, economic slump.
India s oil industry struggles to predict when demand will recover
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India s oil industry struggles to predict when demand will recoverBy Saket Sundria and Debjit Chakraborty, Bloomberg
Last Updated: May 27, 2021, 09:58 AM IST
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Synopsis
This time it s not as bad as April 2020, when demand nearly halved. This time round, more factories have remained open and cargo movements between states haven’t been as badly affected. Even so, around 65% of India’s truck fleet is idle due to weak demand and a shortage of drivers, with localised restrictions creating hurdles to truck movement.
Regional lockdowns and periodic announcements are making things difficult to predict.
The Narendra Modi government isn’t the only one responsible for taking bizarre and capricious decisions while framing regulations to deal with a snowballing second Covid-19 wave.
The Maharashtra regime, which decided on Thursday to extend its lockdown restrictions till 7am on June 1, has come up with its own ham-handed response that now threatens to disrupt the movement of goods and supplies to the state which prides itself on its contribution to 25 per cent of the country’s GDP.
On Thursday, the Uddhav Thackeray-led state government said that truckers ferrying goods from anywhere
outside the state would have to restrict the number of people in the vehicle to just two and they would have to carry Covid negative test reports issued no more than 48 hours before the vehicle rolled across the border.