How much furnace oil per tonne of forgings do the Pune, Rajkot and Chennai cluster profiles imply, and why is Chennai's so low?

Dividing each cluster's printed furnace oil by its printed tonnes gives 37 litres a tonne for Chennai and 58 for Rajkot. Pune comes to 0.15 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) a tonne, about 150 litres. Chennai's profile says an oil furnace burns 100 to 180, so its average is probably not oil alone.

The test: oil bought for the cluster, divided by tonnes made

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) wrote all three cluster profiles. Each gives two totals: the oil its units burn, and the tonnes they forge. Divide one by the other and you get an average. Like dividing a town's petrol by its cars, it hides the cars that run on something else. If the average comes out far below what one furnace burns, many units are heating another way, or one of the totals is off.

What the three profiles print

• Chennai: 7,140 kilolitres of furnace oil and 193,200 tonnes of forgings. 7,140,000 litres / 193,200 tonnes = 37 litres a tonne. In the same profile, oil-fired forging furnaces burn 100 to 180 litres a tonne and heat treatment furnaces 80 to 100.
• Rajkot: 25,163 kilolitres and 434,211 tonnes. 25,163,000 / 434,211 = 58 litres a tonne. If every litre went to the 268,548 tonnes of closed die forging, it is 94 litres a tonne. The profile gives 150 litres a tonne as the oil furnace figure.
• Pune: 11,995 toe of furnace oil and 80,000 tonnes forged in 2011-12. That is 0.150 toe a tonne, the same as the 0.15 toe a tonne, or 150 litres, that the Rajkot profile gives for an oil furnace. If you count the 28,000 tonnes heat treated as well, it is 0.111. Pune's profile prints toe, not litres.

Why Chennai is the odd one

• At the Chennai profile's 100 to 180 litres a tonne, its 7,140,000 litres heat only 39,667 to 71,400 tonnes. That is 21% to 37% of its 193,200 tonnes.
• The other 121,800 to 153,533 tonnes would need another way of heating. Induction at the profile's 450 to 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) a tonne would take 54.8 to 76.8 million kWh. The profile's whole electricity figure for the cluster, presses and motors included, is 24 million kWh.
• So the three printed figures cannot all describe the same year and the same tonnes. The profile does not explain it. It may be that tonnes count something other than oil-heated forgings, or that the 100 to 180 range does not describe the large units. Ask before you copy the 37 as a benchmark.
• Rajkot has the same gap. At the Rajkot profile's 100 to 200 litres a tonne, its 25,163,000 litres heat only about 126,000 to 252,000 tonnes, 29% to 58% of its 434,211. The difference is that Rajkot prints a reason: gas use is 22% of its energy, so oil need not heat every tonne.

What to benchmark yourself against

1. Litres of furnace oil bought in the year, from invoices, divided by tonnes of good forgings despatched. Include heat treatment oil in the numerator only if the tonnes include heat treated work.
2. Compare it with the range your own source gives if you forge with an oil furnace, not with a cluster average. Chennai's profile says 100 to 180 litres a tonne; Rajkot and Pune say 100 to 200. Other live pages use 100 to 170 and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency's 70 to 100, so say which one you used.
3. If you are well under 100, check that your tonnes and your invoices cover the same months, and that no oil is bought on a second account.

Example: your own year

• Furnace oil invoices: 96,000 litres. Good forgings despatched: 800 tonnes (example numbers)
• 96,000 / 800 = 120 litres a tonne, inside the 100 to 180 range
• If you sent out 200 of those tonnes for heating elsewhere: 96,000 / 600 = 160 litres a tonne for the work you heated yourself
• Cluster averages of 37 or 58 would not describe you either way

The litres and tonnes are examples. The cluster figures are TERI's printed totals divided by the arithmetic shown.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the litres of furnace oil bought each month are on file. You divide by your despatched tonnes yourself. Production counters can be added on request.

• How big is Indian forging? Three profiles
• Ludhiana forging oil per tonne: totals against the range
• Forging furnace fuel per tonne benchmark
• Induction billet heater against an oil furnace
• Your carbon number for buyers and banks

Sources: TERI, Cluster profile report: Pune forging cluster (SAMEEEKSHA, 2012), TERI, Energy profile: Rajkot forging industries (SAMEEEKSHA), TERI, Energy profile: Chennai forging industry cluster (SAMEEEKSHA)

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Profile totals are for 2011-12 (Pune), 2014-15 (Chennai) and about 2016 (Rajkot). The division is my arithmetic on TERI's printed figures. Replace the cluster comparison with your own invoices.