Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has pulled out all stops as it grapples with a severe shortage of cooking fuel caused by disrupted ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Delhi has already raised government-controlled prices for LPG cylinders, urged local refiners to maximize their output of liquefied petroleum gas, and begun emergency purchases of LPG cargoes from the United States as volumes traditionally sourced from the Middle East remain unavailable.

The government has also attempted to redirect LPG supplies from industrial end-users to residential consumers, causing demand destruction as a side-effect.

But a yawning gap remains between supply and demand. Against this backdrop, a new appeal has now come forth: the Indian government is asking users of piped natural gas (PNG) to “voluntarily surrender” their LPG connections.

The appeal, issued via a public notice from India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, is couched as an initiative “aimed at enhancing household safety and reducing unnecessary financial burden, [while] supporting national energy goals.”

The first two elements pertain to the perceived risk of unused LPG cylinders exploding at home, and the enticement that customers who have already switched to PNG would get full refunds of their LPG security deposits.

But the third element is the only logical reason for such an appeal to be made at this time.

A U.S.-based industry source who closely follows Indian LPG developments commented after seeing the PNGRB advisory: “Wow! That’s a massive cry for help right there, and scary for the LPG industry.”

LPG in India is used mainly for cooking. A fact sheet from the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell, a unit of India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, describes the mix as 40% propane and 60% butane.

PPAC data show India’s LPG consumption for the 2025-2026 fiscal year (April 2025-March 2026) was 33.212 million metric tons. This was a record, beating the 31.328 million mt reported for April 2024-March 2025.

India’s LPG production for April 2025-Feb. 2026, the most recent data published by the PPAC, totaled 11.723 million tons, compared with the fiscal 2024-2025 total of 12.788 million mt.

The disparity between demand and local production has remained in place over the past decade, obliging India to make up the difference by importing LPG. According to the PPAC, imports during April 2025-Feb. 2026 ran to 20.503 million mt, compared with 20.667 million mt for fiscal 2024-2025.

Until last year, around 95% of these flows came from Middle East suppliers, emanating from ports along the Persian Gulf and transiting the Strait of Hormuz. This data point illustrates the enormity of India’s LPG crisis after these flows stopped

A report in The Hindu newspaper on Thursday quoted Manish Sejwal, senior vice president of commodity markets at Rystad Energy, as saying India’s “import deficit” ran to 1 million mt in March and was projected at 900,000 mt in April. These deficit estimates amount to around half of the implied monthly import average of 1.86 million mt, calculated from the April 2025-Feb. 2026 PPAC total of 20.503 million mt.

The 11-month production total of 11.723 million mt equated to around 35,500 tons a day. Against this basis, a Bloomberg report on Friday said India’s LPG production since Feb. 28 has gone up to 46,000 tons a day, and is projected to rise to 50,000 tons a day after a refinery comes off seasonal maintenance next month.

But total demand, based on the April 2025-March 2026 total of 33.212 million b/d, amounts to nearly 91,000 tons a day. This leaves a gap of some 40,000 tons a day, even after higher local production, that LPG imports need to fill

The Bloomberg report said India’s refiners have secured 650,000 tons of supply from non-Middle East exporters over the next month, or roughly 21,000 tons a day – only half the projected deficit.

A separate issue with non-Middle East imports is timing. A very large gas carrier, an industry workhorse ship size that typically holds 45,000-50,000 tons of cargo, takes 30-45 days to get from a U.S. port to India, depending on whether the voyage involves a straight Suez Canal passage or a detour via the Cape of Good Hope. Trade sources admit that most of India’s emergency LPG purchases from U.S. suppliers would not reach the country until June or July.

Meanwhile, many restaurants across the country are having trouble staying open on a regular basis, low-income LPG consumers are facing shortages and long queues, and a shadow black-market trade has mushroomed.

The PNGRB’s appeal to PNG users to “be responsible citizens” stems from these realities. The appeal makes sense on paper, because the government in recent years has made strenuous efforts to wean people away from LPG cylinders, which periodically need to be replaced, to uninterrupted piped gas that offers the same ecological benefits.

But how much of a dent PNG users can make by relinquishing their LPG entitlements remains to be seen.

This is because there are only around 15 million PNG users in India, mainly in urban areas with enough critical mass to justify state investment in distribution networks. This compares with nearly 330 million LPG connections in the country.

By Rajesh Joshi, rjoshi@opisnet.com; Editing by Alan Lammey, alammey@opisnet.com