ISLAMABAD: The natural gas deficit is expected to increase to 2,679 MMCFD in FY 2022-2023 and 4,796 MMCFD by FY 2027-2028 without the imported gas. The date has been released by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) in its report "State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry 2018-2019 on Tuesday.

The share of RLNG, in the overall gas supply during FY 2018-2019 has increased to 21 percent. The total supply of natural gas in the country including imported RLNG has reached 4,319 MMCFD in FY 2018-2019.

Sindh stood as the major supplier with a contribution in gas supply of around 46 percent, while Balochistan, the KP and the Punjab followed with shares of 11 percent, 12 percent and three percent respectively. While the share of RLNG, in the overall gas supply, has increased to 27 percent during FY 2018-2019.

There is a significant rise in demand of gas by residential/domestic consumers owing to price differential vis-à-vis other competing fuels, i.e. LPG, firewood and coal. On average, during the last five years, more than 0.3 million consumers are added/connected to gas network, annually by the gas utility companies, the report stated.

On the oil side, the consumption of petroleum products in power sector suffered huge decline of 56.72 percent to 2.76 million tons during Financial Year 2018-2019 as compared to 6.3 million tons in Financial Year 2017-2018, followed by industry where consumption declined by 30.16 percent and transport by 6.01 percent.

According to the report, the consumption of the POL products in government and agriculture sector increased by 25.69 percent and 3.59 percent respectively during current year as compared to the previous year.

Product-wise analysis reveals that consumption of the FO decreased by 52.54 percent, the HSD 13.64 percent, Aviation Fuel 12.25 percent, and Kerosene by 10.10 percent in the FY 2018-2019 as compared to last year.

Whereas, the consumption of the LDO increased by 19.98 percent and MS by only 2.33 percent during this period. During FY 2018-2019, the share of transport was 76.36 percent, power 14.36 percent, industry 6.76 percent, government 2.13 percent, agriculture and domestic both constituted less than half of a percent.

More than 98 percent of the POL products were consumed by three sectors namely; transport, power and industry. The consumption trend of various major POL products i.e. MS, HSD, FO, and jet fuels. MS consumption indicates a moderate rise over the years due to rising demand in transport sector.

The HSD consumption has declined sharply contrary to its consistent rise over past four years up to FY 2017-2018. Whereas the consumption of the FO declined sharply from FY 2016-2017 onwards due to less intake by the power sector.

Jet fuel shows an almost consistent consumption trend. The market share of the PSO remained at the top, as usual, with 41.76 percent of the total energy supply. It was followed by the APL with 10.45 percent, TPPL 10.13 percent and Hascol 10.07 percent.

Refineries' total production (energy and non-energy) declined by 9.2 percent to 12.4 million tons during FY 2018-2019 as compared to 13.6 million tons in FY 2017-2018. The PARCO, the NRL, the BPPL, and the PRL have shown sharp decline in production as compared to the last fiscal year, whereas, the production of the ARL and ENAR remained steady.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020