Even as India’s motor manufacturing industry continues to push towards electric vehicles as an option to the millions of ‘gas guzzlers’ upon which the nation depends for transportation the most recent long-term report from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on oil consumption trends in the period ahead indicate that the level of the country’s oil dependence is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future.
The Report envisages diesel and gasoline comprising 58% of India’s oil demand over the next twenty five (25) years, a function, it says, of the addition of 200 million passenger and commercial vehicles in circumstances where the country already consumes an estimated 4.6% of global oil production, making it the third largest consumer of oil, behind the United States and China.