Petroleum Sales Decline by 2%

In the month of September, the sale of petroleum oil products in the country has fallen by a net 2%. It is now at 1.52 million tons, owing to the declining agricultural activities in Pakistan. 

The fall in the sales could have been even greater if the consumption of furnace oil had not seen a surge due to the looming gas crisis. The government had to, once again, resume operations at expensive oil-fired plants in order to meet the rising demand of the people. 

In the month of August, petroleum products generated revenues of 1.55 million tons. These figures were recently revealed by JS Research, who cited data gathered by Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC). 

Shankar Talreja, the Topline Research Deputy Head told the media that sales of petroleum products, especially diesel, has been suffering quite a lot. He pointed out that at the time of the harvesting season in summers, demand usually shoots up. However, this time things did not go as planned. 

The Deputy Head also explained that the reason behind the declining agricultural activities was the accumulation of rainwater. Urban flooding, mostly in Sindh, has left the farmers and their fields devastated. Breakdown indicated that revenues of petrol and diesel fell by 8% each. The former is at 0.64 million tons now from 0.70 million tons in the previous month. Whereas, diesel is at 0.47 million tons from 0.51 million tons. 

Petrol is usually used by car commuters and bikers. Some households also use it to operate home-based power generators. However, the drop in petrol sales remain unknown, even though more people began commuting once the lockdown was completely lifted. Power load shedding also increased, which should have automatically caused a surge in petrol consumption. 

Reports presented by experts just recently informed that the sale of furnace oil, on the other hand, has risen. It is used in the generation of electricity by independent power producers (IPP) and has grown by 20% or 0.37 million tons. It was only 0.31 million tons just last month. 

Moreover, after some gas-based plant came up short in the production of fuel, the government moved towards switching on a few oil-fired power plants. This was done to meet demand for gas as domestic fields reduced their supply. Even the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGC) reported noticing a significant drop in the production of gas, a direct result of redundancy of five fields.