Vadodara: The panic buying on Monday caused a huge jump in fuel demand at the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) fuel stations across the state. According to the IOCL officials, demand for petrol on Monday went up by two-and-a-half times more than their average daily supply in Gujarat.“Our average daily petrol sale in Gujarat is 3,000 kilolitres per day. But on Monday, our fuel stations across the state sold 7,917 kilolitres of petrol as the demand suddenly shot up due to the rumours of fuel shortage,” said Sanjib Kumar Behera, executive director and state head of Gujarat office, marketing division, IOCL.“The average diesel sale of 6,400kl per day in the state went up to 11,550kl on Monday. But we managed to meet the entire demand for both petrol and diesel as we have enough inventory. No one was turned away from our fuel stations. People need not panic as there is no shortage of fuel,” Behera, who is also state-level co-ordinator for the oil industry in Gujarat, told TOI.IOCL has 2,285 fuel pumps across the state, and all of them were functioning normally on Monday. “We even sent out our officials to many of our fuel stations to urge people not to believe in rumours and convince them that we have enough fuel stock. We expect the situation to normalise within a day or two,” Behera added. IOCL is the largest supplier of petrol and diesel in the state, and it also sells fuel to some other petroleum firms.
