KARACHI: The country’s oil sales plunged by 24 per cent to 15.3 million tonnes during the first 10 months of this fiscal year owing to significant drop in furnace oil (FO) and high-speed diesel (HSD) demand.

The sales of furnace oil and HSD stood at 2.448 million tonnes and 6m tonnes, depicting 56.6pc and 19pc fall over the same period last fiscal year. However, petrol sales grew by 1.9pc to 6.204m tonnes from 6.090m tonnes in July-April period of 2018-19.

According to a report by Shajar Capital, oil marketing companies offtake during April 19 rose by 13.6pc month-on-month primarily on the back of a significant rise in FO sales by 48.3pc month-on-month, which stood at 274,000 tonnes. Similarly, petrol volume increased by 4.8pc MoM to stand at 677,000 tonnes month-on-month.

The report attributed decline in FO and HSD sales in the 10-month period to shift in government’s policy on power generation and dampened demand.

PSO performed relatively better than its peers in the outgoing month by posting a substantial increase in total offtake of 17.2pc month-on-month (more than industry average) as volumes clocked-in at 733,000 tonnes.

This was mainly on the back of an upsurge in FO sales which came out at 154,000 tonnes, up by 69.3pc month-on-month, where the government lifted ban on import of FO to meet power sector demand during the summer months.

In 10MFY19, PSO did worse than its peers by posting a decline of 38.8pc year-on-year, predominantly contributed by a fall in FO by 70pc, followed by HSD (28.7pc), the report said.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2019