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Thailand: Fuel consumption falls 13%
Thai fuel consumption in the first 10 months of this year contracted 13% due to the economic recession, according to the Department of Energy Business (DOEB).
Director-general Nanthika Thangsupanich said air and land traffic restrictions across the globe during the pandemic were the main reason for the reduction, which was a record decrease for Thailand.
From January to October this year, fuel consumption in the country sank to 137 million litres per day (MLD) from 157MLD in the same period last year, DOEB reported.
Jet fuel consumption suffered the sharpest decline by 59.4% from 19.3 to 7.8MLD.
Demand for gasoline and gasohol shrunk by 2.4% to 31.3 from 32.1MLD in the same period last year, while diesel consumption fell by 3.6% year-on-year to 64.6 from 67.1MLD.
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) use declined by 14.6% to 15.3 from 17.9MLD, while compressed natural gas declined by 29.5% to 3,800 from 5,500 tonnes per day.
Kerosene use shrunk by 12% to 0.018 from 0.02MLD. Fuel oil shrunk by 15.5% to 4.7 from 5.5MLD.
Fuel imports of crude and refined oil as well as LPG decreased by 8% to 886 kilo barrels per day (KBD), from 963KBD in the same period last year. However, exports of refined oil rose by 12.9% to 187 from 166KBD.
Earlier this year, before the pandemic took hold, DOEB estimated oil consumption would increase almost 3%.
Ms Nanthika said oil consumption would follow the same direction as the country’s GDP.
Last month, the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee upgraded the economic outlook for 2020 to – 7.6%, an improvement from -8.1% in its previous forecast.
This is not the first time fuel consumption has fallen in Thailand. Consumption dipped 0.4% 23 years ago during the Asian financial crisis.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2031739/fuel-consumption-falls-13-