ISLAMABAD: The consumption of oil products and domestic refining dropped by 21 per cent and 9pc, respectively, while the share of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) surged to 20pc during the fiscal year 2018-19.

In its “State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry” report 2018-19 released on Tuesday, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) noted that gas shortages were increasing due to rising demand from various sectors of the economy, particularly power, domestic, fertiliser, captive power and industry.

“The demand supply gap during FY2018-19 was 1,440 MMCFD, which is expected to rise to 3,684 MMCFD, up 156pc, by FY2024-25,” the regulator said, adding the gap would further surge by 275pc to 5,389 MMCFD by FY2029-30.

Ogra said the consumption of petroleum products declined by 20.62pc to 19.56 million tonnes during FY2018-19 as compared to the previous year’s 24.64 million tonnes. The contraction in consumption was observed in all main sectors, including power, which suffered huge decline of 56.72pc to 2.76 million tonnes in FY2018-19 as compared to 6.37 million tonnes in FY 2017-18, followed by industrial sector, which observed lower consumption by 30.16pc and transport sector showed a fall of 6.01pc.

Gas shortage is increasing due to rising demand, observes report

The product-wise consumption of petroleum oil lubricant (POL) products shows that furnace oil (FO) consumption decreased by 52.54pc, mainly owing to lower intake by power sector for power generation. The consumption of high speed diesel (HSD) dropped by 13.64pc “due to sluggish economic activities in the country,” Ogra said.

The aviation fuel consumption also decreased by 12.25pc and kerosene by 10.10pc in FY2018-19 as compared to the previous year whereas the consumption of light diesel oil (LDO) increased by 19.98pc and motor spirit (MS) by 2.33pc.

The total production of refineries declined by 9.20pc to 12.40 million tonnes during FY2018-19 as compared to 13.64 million tonnes in FY2017-18. The Pak-Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO), National Refinery Limited (NRL), BPPL and Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) have shown sharp decline in production as compared to the previous fiscal year. Comparatively, ARL and ENAR production remained steady.

The market share of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) remained at the top, as usual, with 41.76pc of the total energy supply. It was followed by the Attock Petroleum Limited (APL) with 10.45pc share, Total Parco Pakistan Limited (TPPL) 10.13pc and Hascol 10.07pc. The PSO regained almost 3pc of market share as compared to the previous year while the Byco Petroleum also increased its market share by 3pc. The main losers were Total-Parco, Shell and Hascol, whose market share declined by 5pc, 4pc and 3pc, respectively.

The PARCO was the major contributor in POL production with 30.50pc share followed by the BPPL with 18.80pc and the ARL and the NRL with 17.23pc and 16.48pc share, respectively, during FY2018-19.

The year witnessed a significant rise in demand and consumption of gas by residential consumers owing to price differential vis-a-vis other competing fuels, i.e. LPG, fire wood and coal. The gas utility companies during last five years added around 3 million consumers to the gas network annually. The increased demand from sectors, such as power, commercial, residential and fertiliser, has resulted in natural gas availability constraint.

Total gas consumption during the year was 3,969 MMCFD. Total supply of natural gas during the year was 4,319 MMCFD of which gas utility companies supplied 2,379 MMCFD, independent systems 1,040 MMCFD and 901 MMCFD of RLNG was imported.

The SNGPL connected 430,411 new consumers during FY2018-19 reaching to 6.8 million total consumers on its network while the SSGC added 106,054 new connections, making a total of 3 million consumers on its network. Overall, there were 9.8 million natural gas consumers in the country by the end of FY2018-19.The main consumer of natural gas was power sector, consuming 38pc, followed by domestic sector 22pc, fertiliser 16pc, general industry 9pc and captive power 8pc of the total gas consumed during FY2018-19.

Province-wise gas consumption showed that Punjab’s share was 51pc of total gas consumption, followed by Sindh 38pc, KP 9pc and Balochistan 2pc. Natural gas supply during the year was 4,319 MMCFD. Sindh’s share in gas supply was 46pc, whereas KP, Balochistan and Punjab supplied 12, 11 and 3pc, respectively.

The report said natural gas was presently contributing nearly 45pc to Pakistan’s primary energy supply mix. With the anticipated shortfall in indigenous reserves of natural gas compared to fast growing demand, LNG is one of the preferred short to mid-term alternatives to bridge the supply-demand gap. LNG imports were 901MMCFD during FY2018-19 as compared to 754 MMCFD in FY2017-18, up by about 20pc. Its share in overall natural gas supplies has increased from 24pc of the previous year to 27pc in FY2018-19.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2020