The Ministry of Petroleum & (MoPNG) has directed all the refiners to prioritise the utilisation of Propane and Butane streams for production of as the closure of Strait of Hormuz skews India’s imports of the key cooking fuel.
The Ministry in an order on Thursday said that LPG is an essential domestic fuel used by households for cooking across the country and uninterrupted supply is necessary in public interest, sources said.
Regular supplies of LPG are important for India as the country does not have strategic reserves for the key cooking fuel. Around 90 per cent of LPG is consumed in households for cooking. India has around 33.08 crore active domestic consumers, which includes around 10.51 crore beneficiaries under the PM Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY).
West Asia accounts for 85-90 per cent of India’s LPG imports with most cargoes transiting the 34 km-long world’s most critical energy chokepoint.
As per Vortexa, the Middle East Gulf (MEG), excluding Iran, is India’s largest supplier of LPG, covering 92 per cent (around 720,000 barrels per day) of the country’s imports as of 2025.
sources said that in the Thursday order, the Ministry said that 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 utilized for production of LPG and make it available to the three Public sector OMCs viz.IOCL, HPCL and BPCL only.
All oil refining companies shall not divert, utilise, process, crack, convert or otherwise employ Propane or Butane streams for manufacture of petrochemical products or other such downstream derivatives. All Public sector OMCs shall ensure that LPG so procured is supplied/marketed solely to consumers of domestic LPG only, it added.
Any contravention of this Order shall attract action under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and the Petroleum Products (Maintenance of Production, Storage and Supply) order, 1999, and any other applicable law for the time being in force, the order added.