The transport sector is the largest oil consumer in India
No slowdown in oil demand growth
India’s increasing thirst for oil is unlikely to be blunted by planned gas use expansion or the energy transition
India is the world’s third‐largest consumer of energy, with a 5.7pc share of global primary energy use. The combination of a huge population, rising urbanisation, growing incomes and improving living standards for large numbers of people has seen energy use double since 2000. Nor is its appetite for oil set to moderate any time soon, despite rhetoric on a cleaner future energy mix Coal, petroleum products and solid biomass meet nearly 80pc of the country’s energy demand, with oil second only to coal. India is likely to remain among fastest-growing energy consumers in the coming years, and oil, as well as gas, will play a significant role in the country’s expanding energy mix in the short and
Also in this section
17 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 26–30 April 2026, will bring together leaders from the political, industrial, financial and technology sectors under the unifying theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All”
17 February 2026
Siemens Energy has been active in the Kingdom for nearly a century, evolving over that time from a project-based foreign supplier to a locally operating multi-national company with its own domestic supply chain and workforce
17 February 2026
Eni’s chief operating officer for global natural resources, Guido Brusco, takes stock of the company’s key achievements over the past year, and what differentiates its strategy from those of its peers in the LNG sector and beyond
16 February 2026
As the third wave of global LNG arrives, Wood Mackenzie’s director for Europe gas and LNG, Tom Marzec-Manser, discusses with Petroleum Economist the outlook for Europe’s gas market in 2026
