KARACHI: Pakistan’s petroleum products’ sales declined 18 percent YoY to 1.038 million tons during March 2019, dragged by 50 percent decline in Furnace Oil (FO) and 21 percent drop in High Speed diesel (HSD) sales, Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) data suggests.
“FO sales decline continues due to its low usage in power generation after commencement of new RLNG and coal based power plants. HSD sales remained on lower side on back of slowdown in economy as indicated by 7MFY19 Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) decline of 2.3% vs. 7% growth in 7MFY18. Further, continuous smuggling from Iran could also be attributed to this decline,” Shankar Talreja noted in a report issued by Topline Securities.
In 9MFY19 (July-March 2018-19), HSD sales decline of 20 percent touched over decade low due to aforementioned reasons. While Motor Spirit (MS or Petrol) growth remained limited to 1.0 percent, almost 9-Year low on account of decline in cars/bikes sales by 5.0 percent during eight months of the fiscal.
Pakistan State Oil (PSO) regained its market share during March 2019 by 5ppts and 3.5ppts MoM in MS and HSD sales respectively to 39 percent and 41 percent respectively. Hascol lost 4ppts and 6ppts MoM in both products.[the_ad id=”31605″]