KARACHI – The Sale of oil in the country is witnessing a downward trend due to dwindling consumption, Pakistan Today has learnt. According to analysts, the consumption of oil sharply fell by 7.6 percent month-on-month and 2.1 percent year-on-year during seventh month of the current fiscal year, January 2011.
The major reason behind the decline in sales was less diesel consumption, which fell by nine percent to four million tonnes during this period, analysts said. Analysts cited a major slump in the consumption of furnace oil and High Speed Diesel (HSD), with a total share of 79 percent in total volumes, as a major reason for the dip. “It contributed by a factor of 99 percent to the monthly decline in fuel sales,” opined Khurram Shehzad of InvestCap Research.
The sale of oil had, reportedly, declined to 11.3 million tonnes during the period under review from 11.8 million tonnes in the last corresponding period. Analysts believe that demand for the HSD, contributing around 35 percent in the total oil consumption and widely used as a transportation fuel, has dipped because of slow economic activity in the flood devastated country.
Another fuel heavyweight, furnace oil, the consumption of which is over 40 percent, also showed a negative trend, analysts said. It was noted that the sale of furnace oil, a major fuel for the energy generation and shipping sectors, shrank by at least three percent in annual terms to five million tonnes.
According to Shehzad, total volumes in January FY11 were down nine percent in the course of a year. Company-wise breakup reveals that while the volumes of Pakistan State Oil remained down by 11 percent, Shell Pakistan and APL saw their volumes increasing, respectively, by 22 percent and 13 percent during the period under review.
It is interesting to note that the usage of petrol showed a consistent upward trend and swelled up by over 17 percent to 1.3 million tonnes due to, what the analysts fear is permanent scarcity of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
