Your LPG cylinder should be costing you ₹1,695.
You're paying ₹942.
That gap? The government just explained exactly where it went — and why.
Here's the story nobody told you.
In February 2026, the West Asia conflict shut the Strait of Hormuz.
Sounds distant. It wasn't.
90% of India's LPG imports pass through that strait.
And India imports 60% of all the cooking gas it uses.
When the strait closed, supply didn't trickle — it choked.
Global LPG prices went vertical.
The international benchmark (Saudi CP) jumped to $796/MT by June 2026.
That pushed the real, market-determined cost of one 14.2 kg cylinder to ₹1,695.
For context — that's nearly double what you're handing over at the gas agency today.
The government stepped in with a playbook:
Translation: it absorbed the shock so your kitchen didn't feel it.
And prices aren't uniform either.
Tripura pays ₹1,102.50. Maharashtra pays ₹941.50.
That ₹160 gap has held steady since 2022 — freight and logistics, not politics.
Every January, prices spike nationwide.
Every year since 2022, they ease back down through the months after.
It's a pattern, not chaos.
This time though, a war in a strait 2,000 km away nearly broke that rhythm — and the only reason your stove is still lighting up at ₹942 is a subsidy bill running into tens of thousands of crores.
Cheap gas was never really cheap.
Someone was always paying the difference.
That's all for now!
