KARACHI: The country’s overall oil sales rose by 11 per cent in 6MFY21 to 9.742 million tonnes owing to massive increase in furnace oil (FO) followed by rising sales trend in petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD), signalling improving economic activities.

Furnace oil sales clocked into 1.626m tonnes, up by 38pc in the first half of 2020-21, while petrol and HSD sales stood at 4.103m tonnes and 3.743m tonnes, up by seven and 11pc as compared to July-December period of FY20.

According to Syed Fawad Bashir at Topline Securities, total oil sales rose by 16pc in December year-on-year driven by FO demand whose sales swelled by 108pc to 240,000 tonnes on account of high demand from the power sector given gas shortage during winter and overall pick up in economic activities following improvement in Covid-19 situation.

HSD and petrol sales in December stood at 622,000 tonnes and 673,000 tonnes posting a jump of 13pc and five per cent.

Increase in HSD and petrol can be attributed to rising automobile sales to brisk automotive sales coupled with increasing goods movement relating to export and import and positive trend in factory output as per figures of large-scale manufacturing (LSM).

The country’s exports increased by 4.9pc to $12.104bn during 6MFY21 while LSM posted a growth of 5.46pc during July-October 2020-21.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2021