KARACHI: Total petroleum and lubricant sales clocked-in at 1.40 million tons in February 2021, depicting a double-digit growth of 26 percent on year-on-year basis. However, sales declined by 8.0 percent on month-on-month basis due to fewer working days in February compared to January.

The growth in sales volumes is primarily attributable to resilience displayed by the economy and the ensuing demand for MS, better agricultural yields resulting in higher sales of HSD, cheaper MS and HSD prices compared to the same period last year, massive growth in two/three/four-wheeler offtake, absence of CNG at fuel stations increasing the demand of MS and strict control on borders to control supply of illegal or dumped fuel from Iran.

During the first eight months of FY21, sales of total petroleum products increased by 13 percent on YoY to 12.67 million tons against 11.24 million tons in the same period in FY20.

Dissection of data revealed that major contribution to growth came from HSD and FO as their offtake jumped to 4.84 million tons and 2.09 million tons, up by 15 percent and 36percent on YoY against 4.21 million tons and 1.54 million tons in the same period last year.

Company-wise analysis demonstrates that PSO emerged as the best performer and posted a growth of 58 percent on YoY in February 2021 (if we exclude PSO’s growth then February 2021 on YoY sales growth will come down from 26 percent YoY to 5.0 percent YoY), Arsalan Hanif at Arif Habib Limited said.

Likewise, SHEL also followed suit and registered a growth of 33 percent on YoY (HSD sales witnessed a 58 percent on YoY growth).

However, APL and HASCOL posted a decline of 16 percent on YoY (lower requirement of FO from Attock Power Generation) and 45percent YoY, respectively.

During the first eight months of FY21, PSO managed to expand its market share by 1.6 percent on YoY to 46.1 percent compared to 44.5 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 2.2 percent on YoY to 32.3 percent against 30.1 percent in the same period last year.

HASCOL, APL and SHEL’s market share dropped by 1.8 percent, 1.6 percent and 0.5 on YoY to 4.7 percent (6.4 percent in the eight months of FY20), 9.1 percent (10.7 percent in the eight months of FY20) and 7.8 percent (8.3 percent in the eight months of FY20), respectively.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021