India's crude imports down 2.2% to 11.2 mn tonne in Jan

India's crude oil imports dipped by 2.2% in January to 11.28 million tonne, despite fuel demand growing by a healthy 6%, according to official data released here.

Asia's third largest economy imported 11.286 million tonnes of crude oil in January, as against 15.123 million tonnes a year ago, the data showed.

Fuel consumption expanded by 6% to 12.045 million tonnes during the month. The expansion was mostly because of healthy 6.3% growth in diesel demand to 5.006 million tonnes and an 8.9% rise in petrol consumption to 1.141 million tonnes.

Reflecting buoyancy in the aviation sector, jet fuel demand was up 12.3% to 446,300 tonnes, while LPG consumption rose by 9.2% to 1.277 million tonnes.

Refiners boosted crude oil processing to a record 15.2 million tonnes in January, 8.7% higher than the achievement in the year-ago period.

Fuel imports jumped by 57.4% to 1.518 million tonnes during January. The inward shipments mostly comprised LPG, with the cargo volume increasing by 46.1% to 490,200 tonnes.

Exports, however, dipped by 44.3% to 2.661 million tonnes, with diesel shipments declining by 70.6% to 501,100 tonnes.