India’s ministry of petroleum and natural gas has partially relaxed supplies of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to steel mills, including the steel industry among priority sectors, a government statement said on Friday, March 27.
The ministry said that, while it regulates supplies of LPG for commercial use, this is being relaxed partially. Under this relaxation, state governments will now be allocated LPG at 70 percent of their requirements before the war in the Middle East.
Soon after the war, the government had cut LPG allocations for industrial and commercial use to all state government to 50 percent of their pre-war requirements.
“The additional allocation shall be given to industries with priority like steel, automobiles, textiles, dyes, chemicals and plastics, which are labour-intensive and provide support to other essential services,” the ministry said in the statement.
In a communication to the state governments, the ministry said that, even among these industries, priority should be given to process industries or those requiring LPG for specialized heating purposes that cannot be substituted with natural gas.
Earlier this week, the ministry of steel had sought immediate intervention of its counterparts in petroleum and natural gas to mitigate the shortage of LPG being faced by steel mills, particularly small and medium-scale mills.
According to industry sources, the LPG shortage has hit steel-forging units in the northern state of Punjab. Nearly 300 industries in one district alone rely entirely on commercial gas to produce high-strength metal components through hot-forging techniques. A single forging unit requires 425 kg of LPG per day.