India's fuel sales in June at 88% of pre-Covid levels, says govt

India's fuel sales in June reached 88 per cent of the pre-Covid-19 levels as easing of lockdown restrictions is reviving economic activities, the government said on Wednesday.

"The sales of petroleum products in India, the world's third-biggest oil consuming nation, had in April fallen to the lowest since 2007, due to the nationwide lockdown, necessitated to prevent the spread of Covid-19 pandemic," an official statement said.

Demand, however, began to revive in May and in June reached 88 per cent of pre-Covid levels, it said. "India's overall petroleum products consumption, which had nosedived in last week of March and April this year, is now steadily getting to its pre-lockdown levels in June, as emanating from the PSUs' (IOC, BPCL, and HPCL) sales figures," it said.

At 11.8 million tonnes of consumption, fuel demand in June was 88 per cent of 13.4 million tonnes consumption in June 2019.

Petrol consumption of 2 million tonnes in June was 85 per cent of last year's levels, while diesel at 5.5 million tonnes was 82 per cent of normal levels during this month.