NEW DELHI: With the West Asian crisis posing risks to India's energy supplies, the Centre invoked ESMA, and has directed oil refineries to ramp up LPG production to ensure sufficient availability of domestic cooking gas.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has issued an order invoking the Essential Commodities Act of 1955 (ESMA). It directs refiners - Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) - to maximise their output of LPG. The LPG produced must be sold only to domestic households for cooking purposes, the order states, adding that any contravention will attract penal action.
"All oil refining companies operating in India shall maximise and ensure that propane and butane streams produced, recovered, fractionated, or otherwise available with them are utilised for the production of LPG and made available only to the three public sector OMCs," the order reads.
"All oil refining companies shall not divert, utilise, process, crack, convert, or otherwise employ propane or butane streams for the manufacture of petrochemical products or other such downstream derivatives," it adds.
India has sufficient stock of LPG to last nearly a monthThe order comes into force with immediate effect and will remain in force until further orders from the Centre. While India has surplus oil refining capacity, it is short in LPG production.
India has 33.08 crore active LPG consumers, and the government is committed to maintaining an uninterrupted supply. In 2024-25, India consumed 31.3 million tonnes of LPG, of which only 12.8 million tonnes was produced domestically, with the remainder imported. Imports have become increasingly vulnerable, as 85-90% cent come from countries like Saudi Arabia that rely on critical Strait of Hormuz for transit.
The strait has been effectively blocked, following a week-old escalation in the region, after US and Israeli strikes on Iran prompted Tehran to retaliate against US bases in neighbouring countries.