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Petrol and diesel sales by India's three state-run fuel retailers rose sharply in the first half of July, helped by below-normal monsoon rainfall that boosted fuel demand from farmers and motorists, preliminary sales data showed on Thursday. Petrol sales by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) climbed 22.9 per cent to 1.63 million tonnes during July 1-15, compared with 1.33 million tonnes in the corresponding period a year earlier. The volume was also 26.7 per cent higher than 1.29 million tonnes sold during the first half of July 2024 and 38.6 per cent above the level recorded in the same period of 2023. Compared with the first half of June, however, petrol sales fell 4.4 per cent from 1.71 million tonnes. Diesel sales, a key indicator of economic activity in India, rose 20.9 per cent year-on-year to 3.46 million tonnes in the first fortnight of July from 2.87 million tonnes a year earlier. The volume was 18.4 per cent hig
Every time India has faced a major crisis - whether devastating floods, a once-in-a-century pandemic or the latest conflict in West Asia that threatened global oil supplies - it has been the country's state-run oil companies that have quietly kept fuel flowing. For decades, India's public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) have often been criticised for low returns, government intervention in fuel pricing and bloated operations. They have twice been put on the block for privatisation, with plans to sell Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) gathering momentum in 2002 before being halted by a Supreme Court ruling and again in 2020, before the process was abandoned after failing to attract enough bids. Yet every national emergency has reinforced why governments have been reluctant to loosen their grip on companies that control the country's energy lifeline, analysts and industry officials said. When unprecedented floods submerged Chennai in