With the consistent decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases, the economic & other activities are slowly getting back to pre-COVID levels in India. However, the recovery might take a greater amount of time in sectors like Aviation. While petrol & diesel consumption is back to pre-COVID levels, domestic air traffic is still only 50% of the pre-COVID levels. After an initial spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases during March’2020, the Government of India announced a nation-wide lockdown from the midnight of 24 March 2020. The lockdown was extended multiple times until the end of May and unlocking of various activities was carried out in different phases over the ensuing months. The lockdown, social distancing norms along with the increasing COVID-19 cases had an impact on various aspects of day-day life. Over the past couple of months, India has overcome the peak COVID-19 numbers with life slowly resuming back to normalcy. However, with the second wave of COVID-19 cases in Europe, the USA & other parts of the World, there are fears about a similar second wave in India. But what has been the actual impact of COVID-19 on various sectors? Over a period of time, we had written multiple stories analysing the impact of COVID-19 on different sectors. As more than 9 months have passed since the initial lockdown, we review the impact of COVID-19. In this story, we take a look at the COVID-19 impact on petroleum products consumption as well as domestic air travel. Consumption of Petrol & Diesel improve towards the end of 2020 With the fall in vehicular movement during the lockdown, the consumption of fuel, especially petrol & diesel reduced drastically. In an earlier story, we had observed that the consumption of petrol & diesel during April-June’2020 was only 1/3 of the consumption during the same period the previous year. During the next quarter i.e. July-September’2020, it is observed that the consumption of petrol has picked up while that of diesel below the 2019 levels. As per the latest information available on the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC) website, it is observed that the consumption trends have further improved during October- December’2020. Consumption of Diesel back to 2019 levels During the 3 quarter of 2020-21 i.e. during Oct-Dec’2020, a total of nearly 212.27 LMT (Lakh Metric Tonnes) of Diesel was consumed. During the same period in 2019, the consumption was at 214.63 LMT. However, the consumption during Oct-Dec’2020 is less than the consumption during the same period in 2018. For the first time during the current financial year, the monthly consumption in October 2020 was more than the consumption during October 2019. In Oct’2020 the consumption was 69.97 LMT compared to 65.1 LMT in October the previous year. However, this could be due to lower consumption in October 2019 rather than a definitive trend since the consumption of diesel in the next two months of 2020 has been lower than the same months in 2019. Diesel being the main fuel consumed by most of the commercial & transport vehicles is an indicator of the state of the economy. The increasing trend indicates a gradual resumption to pre-COVID levels. Consumption of Petrol on an increasing trend The consumption of petrol during the 3 quarter of 2020-21 is higher than the same period in 2019-20. The month on month consumption of petrol was higher in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20 for the first time in September 2020. This increasing trend sustained in the ensuing months also and in every month of the ‘Oct-Dec’ 2020, the consumption of petrol was higher than the same month during 2019-20. Overall, the consumption of petrol during October-December’2020 was 80.24 LMT, whereas it was 75.47 LMT, during the same period last year. The year-on-year growth during this quarter is also close to the earlier trend i.e. the consumption for Oct-Dec’2019 increased by 7.1% compared to the same period in 2018. During the same period in 2020, the corresponding increase was 6.3%. The increased consumption of petrol indicates a near-total resumption of personal vehicular movement back to the pre-COVID levels. Consumption of LPG is higher while Petroleum coke is still lower than last year The quarterly consumption of all the Petroleum related products during Oct-Dec’2020 was 542.32 LMT, while it was 548.02 LMT during the same time last year. The decreased consumption of diesel & petroleum coke has impacted the overall consumption. As highlighted in an earlier story, there has been no negative impact on the consumption of LPG during the lockdown. The fall in usage in commercial eateries & restaurants seems to have been compensated by the increase in consumption of domestic LPG in households.