Fractured/Earth

Two-and-a-half months into the Iran war, India’s LPG market is splitting into parallel economies. In parts of the country, gas cylinders are available as before. At the most, deliveries are taking longer than earlier but there isn’t much fear of a stockout. Elsewhere, LPG prices have soared so high that families are falling back on firewood. Migrant workers are abandoning cities and returning home. 

These two realities coexist in close proximity. In Delhi, gas distributors in and around Greater Kailash, East of Kailash and Chirag Delhi say they are getting sufficient LPG from HP’s Loni Plant in Ghaziabad, and from Indane’s Madanpur Khadar plant. And yet, visit Madanpur Khadar itself, as CarbonCopy did a month ago, and you will find locals failing to find affordable LPG, and consequently falling back on firewood or travelling back home.

75 days into the Iran war, how are we doing?
CarbonCopy had kicked off its reportage with a clutch of broad reports. The first talked about both this attempt at boosting Pax Americana and the Energy Shock that might follow (https://www.carboncopy.info/west-asia-escalation-can-put-india-s-energy-security-to-the-test). That was on Day Two. A reporting trip to industrial clusters followed ten days later — a time when most attention was on LPG cylinders — (https://www.carboncopy.info/west-asia-shock-ripples-through-india-s-kitchens-factories-and-supply-chains) where we found units starting to fret over energy shortages. Another month later, we found a rising number of Indians falling back on the informal sector for gas and firewood as LPG prices soar (https://www.carboncopy.info/weeks-into-the-west-asia-crisis-how-is-india-really-doing). Each of these reports, however, was a broad/horizontal report. Which is to say: each covered a lot of ground but at the cost of more granular details.
We are now trying to change that. This report published last evening (https://www.carboncopy.info/the-great-lpg-divide-india-s-market-splits-in-two-) is a deeper dive into what is happening in India’s LPG markets. “In a nutshell, India had three supply chains for LPG. The first catered to registered users. The second, working through small shopkeepers, catered to transient populations. The third, working clandestinely, mopped up any unmet demand.” This report looks at how each of these has been affected over the last 75 days.
Do read.