Senseible

What did a unit of heat cost Pune forging units from furnace oil, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or electricity in the Energy and Resources Institute profile?

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) profile of Pune forging prints each fuel's tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) and its rupees (Rs). Dividing gives about Rs 45,000 a toe for LPG, 47,900 for natural gas, 70,100 for furnace oil and 79,500 for electricity, from its 2011-12 bill table. Oil and LPG were not costed at the profile's own price list.

A toe, in plain words

A toe is a yardstick, like a standard bucket. It lets you pour oil, gas and electricity into the same bucket and compare how much heat each carries. One toe is the heat in about a tonne of oil. When a profile says a fuel cost Rs 70,000 a toe, it means Rs 70,000 for a bucketful of heat.

The table, and the division

Table 5.3 of the profile covers 50 forging and 20 heat treatment units in 2011-12. It lists each fuel's toe and its cost in millions of rupees. The rows add up: 24,252 toe and Rs 1,658 million. Dividing each row gives the cost of a bucketful of heat. This is my arithmetic on the printed rows.

What the price list says, and where it differs

Why dearest per toe is not dearest per tonne

The Rajkot profile says an oil furnace uses about 0.15 toe to heat a tonne and an induction heater about 0.04 toe, which it puts at 450 kWh. The Chennai profile says 400 kWh. Electricity costs more per toe, but you need far fewer toes. Always compare the cost for a tonne of forgings, not the cost of a toe.

Example: one tonne of billets, old prices

Prices are TERI's 2011-12 cluster averages. The 0.15 toe and 450 kWh a tonne come from the Rajkot profile.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records. You do the rupees-per-toe division yourself. It does not set fuel prices.

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. Prices are the 2011-12 cluster averages printed in the profile. The oil and LPG rows do not match the profile's own price list, and I could not find why. Fuel and power prices have moved a great deal since. Rebuild the table from your own last twelve months of invoices.