India to overtake China in oil demand: IEA

New Delhi: India's oil demand growth will overtake China by mid-2020s, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday asking the world's third-largest energy consumer to raise the capacity of strategic oil storages as insurance against disruptions.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said India's current strategic oil storage of 10 days of its imports is not enough to protect it in "rainy days."

IEA projected India's oil demand to reach 6 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2024 from 4.4 million bpd in 2017. China's demand growth is likely to be slightly lower than that of India by the mid-2020s.

"India is the world's third-largest consumer of oil, the fourth-largest oil refiner and a net exporter of refined (petroleum) products.

The rate of growth of India's oil consumption is expected to surpass that of China in the mid-2020s, making India a very attractive market for refinery investment," IEA said the 'India 2020 Energy Policy Review' released here.

Speaking to reporters after the release, Birol said, India today is the third-largest oil market behind the US and China.

Its "demand will go up significantly in the next years to come" on the back of rise in oil consumption for mobility, as cooking fuel and in the petrochemical industry.

The IEA, which coordinates the release of strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) among developed countries in times of emergency, said it is important for India to expand its reserves.