India's oil consumption rose by 7.78 per cent in Aug

New Delhi, Sept 21: The country's

consumption rose 7.78 per cent in August from a year earlier as deficient monsoon rain and power crisis pushed

demand.

Petroleum product consumption in August totalled 12.037 million tonnes, up from 11.168 million tonnes a year ago, according to latest data available from the oil ministry here.

August consumption was lower than 12.87 million tonnes in July. Also, the growth in August was lower than 9.4 per cent rise in July.

Diesel consumption, which makes up for more than 40 per cent of the fuel sales, leaped 10.4 per cent to 5.054 million tonnes in August mostly due to demand from the power sector.

Northern grid failure on two occasions led to higher consumption in diesel-generators.

Petrol consumption was up 7.5 per cent to 1.313 million tonnes while LPG rose by about 5 per cent to 1.337 million tonnes, according to the data.

Kerosene sales, however, dropped marginally to 624,000 tonnes from 671,000 tonnes in August 2011. Also, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) sales were down to 415,000 tonnes in August from 440,000 tonnes in the same month last year.

Naphtha consumption was up 25.2 per cent to 1.132 million tonnes.

PTI