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490176
Fri, 04/27/2018 - 09:20
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Thailand's oil consumption expected to increase by 5% in 2018

BANGKOK, April 27 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Energy says that the country's overall oil consumption should increase by 5.1 per cent this year, most of which should be the use of diesel. Usa Ponglukna, Deputy Director-General of the ministry's Department of Energy Business, told journalists on April 26 that the assessment was based on the increased domestic oil consumption in the first quarter of this year in line with the expanding Thai economy and people's travels. Usa stated that the use of benzene or gasoline and diesel in Thailand during the first quarter of this year stood at 30.8 million liters and 67 million liters per day, an increase of 4.7 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively from the same period of last year. The senior official reported that last month alone, Thailand's consumption of diesel reached a historic peak at 68.9 million liters per day, projecting that the country's use of diesel should stand at about 65 million liters per day on average in 2018. According to the senior official, the use of natural gas in the Thai transport sector should decline in 2018 because a drop in world oil prices over the past couple of years has prompted motorists to switch to more use of gasoline and diesel instead, but the rising world oil prices should limit the declining consumption of natural gas in the country. The senior official told reporters that the use of natural gas for vehicles (NGVs) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the Thai transport sector stood at 6.5 million kilograms and 3.4 million kilograms per day on average in the first quarter of this year, a drop by 8.3 per cent and 10.8 per cent respectively. Official statistics, latest released by the Thai Ministry of Transport's Department of Land Transport, show that the number of newly-registered cars run by NGVs in Thailand has dropped by 3.1 per cent to 387,792 units so far. However, the use of LPG in other Thai sectors during this year's January-March period reached 17.8 million kilograms per day on average, a 9.5 per cent increase from the corresponding period of last year. (TNA)

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