India's crude oil imports rose to 20.34 million tonnes in July, up 35.4% from a year earlier, helped by higher demand, government data showed on Wednesday.
The crude oil imports were up 6.4% from June.
Improved demand for crude oil was led by an increase in mobility and economic activity after the easing of pandemic restrictions, said Hetal Gandhi of CRISIL Research.
India, which has been taking advantage of cheaper crude varieties, in July eased imports from Russia for the first time since March, while supplies from Saudi Arabia rebounded for the first time in five months.
Meanwhile, Indian refiners' crude oil throughput in July rose 10.5% from a year ago, while crude oil production was 600,000 barrels per day (bpd), down 3.8% year on year. [O/INDIA1]
Oil product imports rose 5.4% from a year earlier to 3.73 million tonnes, while exports fell by 0.4%. Of the 4.68 million tonnes of exports in July, diesel accounted for 2.18 million tonnes, data from the website of the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed.
"Going forward, we expect continuing improvement in economic activity to support steady growth in petroleum product consumption," Gandhi said.
"However, elevated crude oil prices, a depreciating rupee and inflationary pressure is expected to cap product consumption growth to 4-6% on-year for fiscal 2023."
India, Asia's third-biggest economy, holds surplus refining capacity and exports refined fuels as well.
NOTE: The data for imports and exports is preliminary because private refiners share numbers at their discretion.
(Reporting by Bharat Govind Gautam and Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Jason Neely and David Goodman)
