January 05, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 14, 1427

KARACHI, Jan 4: Several brokerage houses on Thursday came up with their thoughts on the sales volume of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) which had depicted an increase of 19 per cent for the first five months of the current financial year (2006-07), compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. The numbers were released by the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC).

Analyst Naveed Vakil at AKD Securities observed that the sale of POL products in terms of volume stood at 7.2 million MT for July-November

2006, which was 19 per cent higher than off take of 6.06 million MT in the same time last year.

“Black oil sales volume remains the main driver behind the surge in POL product off take, increasing by 73 per cent year-on-year with furnace oil rising by 75 per cent to 2.8 million MT”, says the analyst.

Industry-wise, analyst at AKD Securities observed that Pakistan State Oil (PSO) posted an increase of 32 per cent year-on-year in total product sales volume to 4.6 million MT.

The analyst stated that due to its being the biggest beneficiary of a captive market for Furnace Oil supply to 11 IPPs, PSO managed to increase overall market share to 64 per cent from 58 per cent.

The company also increased market share in the white oil sales volume by two per cent to 56 per cent.

As regards the other major OMC Company, Shell Pakistan, the analyst stated that the company managed to stage recovery increasing by 19 per cent MoM. Lubricant off take for November ’06 was close to par with the industry increasing by 36 per cent MoM.

Analyst Rekha Rana at Taurus Securities stated that the year-on-year comparison of entire industry’s white oil product consumption showed a negative trend for five months under review.

White oil product consumption year-to-date inclusive of JP-1, Motor Spirit and HSD declined by three per cent year-on-year. Local sales of JP-1 had tapered off primarily due to the base effect of higher JP-1 consumption during last year from rescue efforts in earthquake areas. The analyst said that HSD posted a healthy month-on-month rise of 27 per cent, though year-on-year volumes declined by two per cent.

“Generally speaking HSD tends to gain momentum in November and December from agriculture product movement during the harvesting season of kharif crop,” stated the analyst.

Abrar Hussain, an analyst at Live Securities, mentioned that on month-on-month basis, the industry sales volumes depicted a nine per cent growth at 1.4 million tons as against 1.3 million tons during October 2006.

Moreover, on year-on-year basis, sales volumes during November stood 22 per cent higher as against 1.1 million tons during the same month last year.

The analyst said that the reason that furnace oil sales were the major contributor to the exceptional demand growth by approximately 74 per cent was “country’s greater reliance on thermal power during the ongoing winter season”.