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News has emerged in the last few hours that new restrictions are to be implemented in India to manage the application of oxygen supply and prioritise use for medical purposes, as the country continues to grapple with Covid-19.
Several states across India are understood to be flagging oxygen shortages as Covid cases surge, with the government announcing that oxygen supply will now be restricted to just nine industries.
From later this week (Thursday 22nd), industrial oxygen supply will be restricted to those entities involved in refilling cylinders, the pharma sector, steel plants, oil refineries, wastewater treatment, food and water treatment, nuclear energy facilities and continuous production sites that must keep processes running.
In essence, the order of the day is essential industrial use only, with medical oxygen provision the priority.
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It comes after a weekend in which global confirmed deaths due to coronavirus passed three million according to Johns Hopkins University. The World Health Organization (WHO) had also warned that the world was ‘approaching the highest rate of infection’ so far.
This certainly appears to be the case in India, described as experiencing its second wave and having recorded more than 250,000 new cases on Saturday (17th) alone, cite various reports.
According to John Hopkins University, at the time of writing confirmed cases in India total more than 15 million, with almost 179,000 fatalities. The country has surpassed Brazil in terms of cases, though not fatalities, and is second only to the US (31 million) in its rising infection numbers.
It is not just oxygen in crisis across the country; several states are reportedly low on hospital beds and (medical) drugs too.
A crisis in distributiion, not production
According to gasworld Business Intelligence estimates, the problem lies in the oxygen supply chain and not in oxygen capacity itself.
Karina Kocha, Business Intelligence Manager, explained, ”According to our data, the total annual production capacity for oxygen in India is around 65,000 tonnes per day (tpd) for 2020/2021. This is the total amount of oxygen that can be produced at all oxygen facilities in India.”
“The steel industry requires just over 70% of this volume, another 15% is consumed by the petrochemicals sector, while the non-ferrous industry metals consumes about 5%. The ‘normal’ medical oxygen demand, according to our estimations, was around 1,600 – 1,700 tpd in the period from 2016-2019 and before the Covid pandemic struck. Due to Covid-related oxygen demand that appeared in 2020, however, oxygen consumption in hospitals rocketed to about 10-12,000 tpd in 2020 and is expected to be about 8-10,000 tpd in 2021.”
“What does this mean? Whilst a theoretical approach,” she added, “it reveals that the main problem is not in a lack of production. When we talk about availability of oxygen, we also talk about the ability to deliver and distribute – to organise logistics, to have enough cryogenic (tank) trucks, cylinders, and refilling facilities. The situation here looks like it is not production, but the distribution system that has become for India the bottleneck on the path of oxygen from factories to hospitals.”
Industrial-medical oxygen
Today’s news continues an escalating story in the fight against Covid-19 (coronavirus) and comes just over one year since India broke ground as the first country to temporarily allow industrial oxygen producers to manufacture and sell the gas for medical use.
gasworld reported on 8th April 2020 that the Government of India had granted permission for manufacturers of industrial oxygen to manufacture and sell the gas for medical use, a proposal put forward by the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturer’s Association (AIIGMA), to ensure the availability and supply of oxygen for medical use across the country.
The grant was issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (Government of India) and essentially enabled all manufacturers of industrial oxygen in the country to obtain a license to sell the product for medical use within 24 hours of their application being received.
gasworld has reached out to AIIGMA for comment on this latest development.
Ongoing impact
Meanwhile, with India’s ongoing battle with Covid and this accelerating second wave, fears have surfaced around the impact on the country’s economy.
This has been seen in the performance of India’s currency, the rupee, with a reported fall of around 3% since the start of April, tarnishing what had been a strong start to the year for the currency and the economy’s nascent revival and arousing global investor concerns.
在过去的几个小时中，有消息称，印度将继续应对新冠肺炎，将在印度实施新的限制措施，管理氧气优先用于医疗供应。
据了解，随着新冠肺炎激增，印度的几个州都在举报氧气短缺的问题，政府宣布氧气供应现在将仅限于9个行业。
从本周晚些时候，工业氧气供应将仅限于那些填充缸，制药行业，钢铁厂，炼油厂，污水处理，食品，水处理，核能源设施和连续生产基地实体必须保持运行。
据约翰·霍普金斯大学称，在周末之前，全球已确认的冠状病毒死亡人数超过了300万人。 世界卫生组织（WHO）也警告说，迄今为止，世界正在“达到最高感染率”。
印度的情况确实如此，据报道，据报道，印度经历了第二波冲击， 在星期六一天就记录了25万多起新病例。
根据约翰·霍普金斯大学（John Hopkins University）的数据，在撰写本文时，印度的确诊病例总计超过1500万，死亡人数将近17.9万。 就死亡人数而言，该国的病例数已超过巴西，尽管其死亡人数却仅次于美国（3100万）。
不仅是全国范围内氧气出现短缺； 据报道，有几个州的病床和（医疗）药物也很少。
分销而不是生产方面的危机
根据《 天然气 世界商业情报》的估计，问题出在氧气供应链上，而不是氧气容量本身。
商业智能经理Karina Kocha解释说：“根据我们的数据，印度在2020/2021年的氧气年总生产能力约为每天65,000吨（tpd）。 这是印度所有氧气设施可产生的氧气总量。”
钢铁行业的需求量仅占其中的70％以上，石化行业的消费量占15％，而有色金属行业的消费量约为5％。 根据我们的估计，从2016年至2019年以及Covid大流行爆发之前，“正常”医用氧气需求量约为1,600 – 1,700吨/天。 然而，由于2020年出现与Covid相关的氧气需求，到2020年医院的氧气消耗量猛增至约10-12,000 tpd，预计到2021年将约为8-10,000 tpd。”
“这是什么意思？ 她补充说，“这是一种现象，揭示了主要问题并非缺乏生产。 当我们谈论氧气的可用性时，我们还讨论了交付和分配的能力–组织物流，拥有足够的低温（油罐）卡车，钢瓶和加气设施。 问题看起来似乎不出现在生产，对印度来说，分配系统已成为从工厂到医院的氧气通道的瓶颈。”
工业医用氧气
今天的新闻继续在与新冠肺炎的斗争中不断升级的故事，距印度破土动工仅一年多，该国是第一个临时允许工业制氧生产商生产和销售用于医疗用途的天然气的国家。
2020年4月 ，印度政府已批准工业氧气制造商生产和销售医疗用气体，这是全印度工业气体制造商协会（AIIGMA）提出的一项提案，旨在确保全国医疗用氧气的供应和供应。
该条款是由卫生服务总局（印度政府）颁发的，基本上使该国所有工业用氧气制造商都可以在收到申请后的24小时内获得销售该产品用于医疗用途的许可证。
持续的影响
随着印度与新冠肺炎的持续斗争以及第二波的加速发展，对该国经济的影响逐渐浮出水面。
从印度卢比的表现中可以看出这一点，据报道，自4月初以来，卢比下跌了约3％，破坏了本年强劲开端的势头，印度经济的新生复兴问题引起全球投资者关注。
引用出处 Citation:
https://www.gasworld.com/india-restrictions-on-oxygen-supply-as-fight-against-covid-continues/2020774.article