Trailing Oil Demand in India Shows Economy Not Fully Recovered
- Overall refinery run rates for May still down 25% year-on-year
- Stubbornly high stockpiles remain; full recovery seen end-2020
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The world’s biggest lockdown may have eased in India, but the country’s oil refineries are finding it tough going to pull off a complete recovery as fuel demand remains below pre-virus levels and stockpiles swell.
Operations across 23 refineries nationwide were at 77% of capacity in May, according to oil ministry data. While that was an improvement from a low of 72% in April, when stay-at-home orders decimated fuel demand and filled storage tanks to the brim, it was still well down on the 102% recorded a year earlier. The amount of crude processed, also known as refinery throughput, was almost 25% lower year-on-year last month.