Indonesia’s fuel sales fell last year for the first time since 2015 as the COVID-19 outbreak reduced demand and disrupted the country’s downstream oil and gas industry. Sales of oil fuels (BBM) – the pollutive but hard-to-replace and highly politicized commodity – fell by 3.74 percent annually to 72.31 million kiloliters (kL) in 2020 from 75.12 million kL in the previous year, according to data from the Indonesian energy and economic statistics handbook (HEESI) and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s presentation. The fuel includes subsidized and unsubsidized fuels as well as biofuel. Fuel consumption last dipped in 2015, when Indonesia’s economic growth slowed down to 4.79 percent, causing fuel sales to fall 4.56 percent yoy from the previous year to 67.55 million kL, HEESI data also showed. The country’s economic growth would hove…