KARACHI: Petroleum and lubricant sales clocked in at 1.49 million tons in March 2021, depicting a gigantic growth of 44 percent on year-on-year basis.
The growth in sales volumes is primarily attributable to economic growth driving retail fuel sales, surge in trade activity (exports and imports) and better agricultural yields resulting in higher sales of HSD, double digit growth in automobile offtake, preference to private transport over public transport to reduce chances of contracting Covid-19, and strict surveillance on borders and various parts of country in order to control supply of illegal or dumped fuel from Iran, Arsalan Hanif at Arif Habib Limited said.
During the first nine months of FY21, sales of total petroleum products increased by 15 percent on YoY to 14.15 million tons against 12.27 million tons in the same period in FY20. Dissection of data revealed that major contribution to growth came from HSD and FO with offtake undergoing a jump to 5.38 million tons and 2.30 million tons, up by 17 percent and 43 percent on YoY against 4.60 million tons and 1.61 million tons in the same period last year. The company-wise analysis demonstrates that PSO again emerged as the best performer and posted a growth of 79 percent on YoY in March 2021 which was majorly contributed by sales growth of FO by 967 percent YoY. “If we exclude PSO’s growth then March 2021 sales growth will come down from 44 percent to 23 percent on YoY,” Arsalan said. Likewise, SHEL and APL also followed suit and registered a growth of 36 percent and 12 percent on YoY, respectively in March 2021. However, HASCOL posted a decline of 53 percent YoY due to decline in MS and HSD dales by 54 percent and 49 percent on YoY, respectively. During the first nine months of FY21, PSE managed to expand its market share by 2.3 percent on YoY to 46.2 percent compared to 43.9 percent in the same period in FY20. Albeit, new entrants have been giving a tough time to existing players as their overall market share has increased by 2.0 percent to 32.4 percent on YoY against 30.4 percent in the same period last year. APL and SHEL’s market share dropped by 2.1 percent, 1.7 percent and 0.5 percent YoY to 4.5 percent (6.6 percent in 9MFY20), 9.0 percent (10.7 percent in 9MFY20), and 7.9 percent (8.3 percent in 9MFY20), respectively.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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