Self Sufficiency in Petroleum Products at a 7 year low
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 15, 2017
India’s self sufficiency in petroleum products reached a seven year low in 2016-17. From 25.04% in 2010-11, it reached 17.92% in 2016-17. South India is at the top in per capita sales of Petrol, Diesel & LPG.
Petroleum products such as LPG, Diesel & Petrol are used by most Indians every day. Even industry uses certain petroleum products. Over the last 7 years, India’s self sufficiency in petroleum products has gone down from 25.04% in 2010-11 to 17.92% in 2016-17.
Diesel is consumed the most
The following petroleum products are consumed in India.
From the data available with the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC), LPG, Petrol & Diesel make up for more than 60% of the consumption of all petroleum products in India. All the other products together make up the remaining 40% of which Naphtha & Petroleum Coke are consumed the most. As expected, consumption of Diesel accounts for almost 40% of all petroleum product consumption since most of the public transport (and transport of goods) runs on Diesel. Proportion of diesel consumption increased from 40.8% in 2009-10 to 44% in 2012-13. Since then, it has been steadily decreasing and went below 40% for the first time in 2016-17. On the other hand, the proportion of petrol has increased from 9.3% in 2009-10 to 12.3% in 2016-17.
Self Sufficiency at a 7 year low in 2016-17
While it is a known fact that imports account for bulk India’s oil needs, the self sufficiency of India in petroleum products has been steadily decreasing. Self sufficiency is calculated by taking the total indigenous production as a percentage of total domestic consumption. From 25.04% in 2010-11, it has come down to 17.92% in 2016-17. In 2009-10, the self sufficiency was 22.7%.
The decline in self sufficiency is on the account of increasing consumption and a stagnated domestic production. The total domestic production stood at 34.8 million metric tonnes in 2016-17, less than what it was in 2010-11. On the other hand, the total domestic consumption increased from 141 million metric tonnes in 2010-11 to 194.2 million metric tonnes in 2016-17.
Region wise Sales – West & South India on Top
If region wise sale of petroleum products is considered, then the sales in the North are highest followed by West, South, East and North East in that order. The sale in the North is highest because North comprises of a large number of states as per the PPAC classification. The sale in the North is almost 15 times the sale in the North East and twice the sale of East & North East Combined.
But when it comes to per capita sale of petroleum products (Total Sale/ Population as per 2011 Census), the Western region comes on the top followed by the South. The per capita sale of petroleum products in both the West & South are substantially higher than the national average while the North is only slightly higher than the national average. The per capita sale in the East & North East is almost half of the national average.
While the West leads in terms of per capita sales of all petroleum products, it is South India that leads in the per capita sales in each of LPG, Petrol & Diesel. In 2016-17, the per capita petrol sales in the South is almost 50% more than the national average and 3 times the per capita sales of petrol in the East.
State wise Sales –Maharashtra tops in sales, Haryana in per capita sales
In terms of absolute sales, Maharashtra recorded the highest sale of petroleum products in 2016-17 followed by Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu & Karnataka in that order.  Though Haryana is a smaller state compared to the other states, it is in the seventh place in terms of the sale of petroleum products. Of the bigger states with more than a crore population, Haryana even tops the list in per capita sales of petroleum products. Chandigarh had the highest per capita sales in LPG in 2016-17 where as Goa topped in the case of per capita Petrol & diesel sales.
Featured Image: By Pp391 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons