India’s crude oil import dependency rose to an all-time excessive of 90 % during April 2025 as it earned extra cargoes to fulfill the requirements of an increasing industrial and commercial base.
The growing dependence is likewise reflected on the continuously declining production in the nomination blocks operated by state-run majors – ONGC and OIL – which accounts owed for greater than 75% of India’s overall output. Production by the private/jv enterprises within the Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) or Revenue Sharing Contracts (RSC) regime has also been languishing.
According to oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC), India’s import dependency of crude oil, on POL (Petroleum, Oil & Lubricants) basis rose to its highest on record at 90% in April 2025, as compared with 88.5% and 88.6% throughout the same month in 2024 and 2023 calendar years, respectively.
In FY25, the country’s crude oil import dependence rose to 88.2% as compared with 87.4% and 85.5% at some point of FY24 and FY23, respectively, data from PPAC confirmed.
Stumbling blocks According to the latest India Energy Scenario document – bought out by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) below the Power Ministry – crude oil manufacturing declined via 3% in keeping with annum in the last 7 years, finishing FY24.
It attributed the decline to several factors, which include natural depletion of older and marginal fields, accessibility and technical demanding situations in certain reservoirs, disruptions in fields activities, etc. India’s estimated balanced recoverable crude oil reserves in the country’s were 671.4-mt as of April 1, 2024 reflecting a 0.3 % increase from the preceding year’s reserves at 669.47-mt.
