Despite the inflating prices, the demand for petroleum had an upward trend in January following the harvesting of wheat, power generation through oil-fired plants, and the building of domestic reserves in anticipation of a future surge in its international prices.
A research report that Arif Habib Limited (AHL) detailed that the total sales of oil sales grew 20 percent to 1.80 million tons as compared to 1.52 million tons in the same month last year, and went up by 19.6 percent when compared with December 2021.
During the first seven months of the current fiscal year (July-Jan FY22), the oil marketing industry recorded 14.5 percent growth in its sales, which surged to 12.91 million tons, compared to 11.27 million tons in the same period of the last year.
This rising trend was also reported in the sales of diesel which increased by 20 percent to 0.74 million tons in January against 0.62 million tons in the preceding month of December. Furthermore, the sales of petrol rose by 6.2 percent to 0.74 million tons in January when compared to 0.70 million tons in the previous month, while the sales of furnace oil surged 103 percent to 0.26 million tons in January compared to December 2021’s 0.13 million tons.
Additionally, three major power plants, located in Punjab, ran on diesel due to the increasing gas shortage during the winter months. Besides, some other plants ran on furnace oil and its demand picked up as well. The oil marketing companies (OMCs) and their dealers (petrol pumps) also built inventories during the month in anticipation of a hike in prices of petroleum products in the global as well as domestic markets.
However, this growth in demand is mostly seasonal owing to the wheat harvesting that takes place in January.
