The United States supplied nearly three-fourths of LPG imported by India in July, reflecting a sharp restructuring of the country’s supply basket as the share of traditional West Asian suppliers fell, commodity intelligence firm Kpler showed.
Between July 1 and 29, India’s LPG imports reached 1.15 million tonnes, and US supplies accounted for 73% of the cooking gas shipments.
Rapid Diversification Drives
This signals that India has overachieved its target to scale up LPG imports from the US due to West Asia supply bottlenecks. New Delhi had planned to source up to a quarter of its LPG imports from the US by 2027, as part of an energy sourcing diversification strategy, and to address Washington’s demands for reducing the trade deficit with India.
The US’s share in India’s LPG imports has risen rapidly from 39.6% in April to 55.4% in May, 62.3% in June and 73% through 29th of July. Though the base price of US LPG is lower than the West Asian variant, the landed costs are higher due to long-haul freight.
Supplies from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Oman, Iraq and Bahrain together totaled about 289,000 tonnes in July, which was a quarter of total imports.
West Asia’s share was 29.3% in June, 33.6% in May and 55.6% in April. The region accounted for 88.1% of India’s LPG imports in January and 85.9% in February, compared with a US share of 11.9% and 12.9%, respectively.
Steep Decline
Among West Asian suppliers, UAE shipments declined 34.9% from June to 102,001 tonnes through July 29. Iran supplied 89,086 tonnes, more than three times the previous month’s 29,106 tonnes.
Kuwait shipped 33,147 tonnes, while Oman supplied 31,062 tonnes. Imports from Qatar stood at 19,323 tonnes after no shipments were recorded in June, while Iraq supplied 14,396 tonnes.
No cargoes arrived from Saudi Arabia through July 29, compared with 64,293 tonnes in June and 183,898 tonnes in April.
During the April-June quarter, India imported 3.27 million tonnes of LPG, with the US contributing 1.738 million tonnes, or 53.1%. The UAE supplied 454,021 tonnes, while Saudi Arabia accounted for 293,191 tonnes.
Domestic LPG consumption remained above 2.1 million tonnes in each month of the quarter: 2.192 million tonnes in April, 2.130 million tonnes in May and 2.188 million tonnes in June. Imports during the quarter were equivalent to about half of the 6.51-million-tonne domestic consumption.