At a time when most Asian and Asia Pacific countries have borne the brunt of the Middle East conflict, leading to high energy prices, India's retail fuel stations have shown exceptional stability. According to data from Morgan Stanley, India is an outlier in the Asia and Asia Pacific region, maintaining a 0% change in retail petrol and diesel prices since the start of the Iran war.
This pales in comparison to the rest of Asia, which is battling energy hyperinflation. The Philippines, for one, has seen diesel prices surge by 107% while Australia and Malaysia have incurred jumps of 71% and 82% respectively.
Meanwhile, petrol prices in Vietnam and Thailand have climbed by 24% and 34%, while Singapore has seen a 21% increase.
This stability is largely due to state-run OMCs absorbing all the cost, incurring massive losses in the process. This has been evident in their share price, with the likes of IOCL, HPCL and BPCL stocks falling as much as 27% since the start of the war.
On the flip side, though, India's domestic power grid is feeling the heat of the Iran war. Power prices have jumped 17%, matching the surge seen in Japan, thus putting additional strain on a population already dealing with a breakdown in essential utilities.
However, both are trailing the grid-level hyperinflation seen in Singapore (44%) and the Philippines (49%). Only Taiwan and Indonesia have managed to keep power prices at a 0% change, despite their respective fuel costs rising.
This comes on the back of a new nationwide survey by LocalCircles that revealed 68% of household consumers are now experiencing LPG delivery delays, a sharp climb from 57% a week prior.
With the official supply chain buckling, 20% of households have been forced into the black market to secure cooking gas, up from 14% the previous week.
These desperate consumers are paying premiums ranging from Rs 300 to Rs 4,000 per cylinder. In some extreme cases, housing societies have reportedly paid as much as Rs 5,000 per cylinder for community events.
ALSO READ: Gas Shortage: LPG Black Market Is Booming As Digital Systems Fail India's Households
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