Production of indigenous gas declines, consumption up

ISLAMABAD-The production of indigenous gas has declined by over 6 percent in 2020-21 from 2019-20, while its consumption has gone up by over 5 percent during the same period. 

The production of indigenous gas has declined by over 6pc to 2,006 MMCFD in 2020-21 from 2,138 MMCFD during 2019-20, while its consumption has gone up by over 5pc which reached 3,884 MMCFD from 3,683 MMCFD, said OGRA’s State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry report 2020-21 .

Despite reduction in indigenous gas production, the Sui gas companies have expanded their transmission and distribution network to cater to the demand of their new consumers, the report said. 

SNGPL and SSGCL have extended their transmission network by 37kms and 17kms respectively during FY2020-21.  Similarly, SNGPL extended its distribution network by 7,141kms and SSGCL by 929kms during the same period, the report said.

The country has a huge network of 13,768kms of transmission and 191,478kms of distribution gas pipelines providing natural gas to domestic, industrial, commercial and transport sectors. Addition of new consumers: SNGPL has connected 371,618 new consumers during FY2020-21 reaching to 7.41 million total consumers on its network. SSGCL has added 95,436 new connections making a total of 3.21 million consumers on its network. Overall, there were 10.62 million natural gas consumers in the country by the end of financial year 2020-21. 

Natural gas supply during the year was 4,172 MMCFD compared to 4,050 MMCFD last year. Out of total gas supplies 1,153 MMCFD as against 1,057 MMCFD last year, was supplied by the gas fields/producers directly to their consumers and the remaining through gas utility companies. 

Province-wise gas share: Sindh’s share in total gas supply has declined by 11 percent from 1,344 MMCFD in FY 2019-20 to 1,192 MMCFD in FY2020-21, Punjab’s share declined by 9 percent from 91 MMCFD to 83 MMCFD and Balochistan by 1 percent from 335 MMCFD to 333 MMCFD. Whereas the share of KP has increased by 8 percent from 368 MMCFD to 398 MMCFD during the same period. In overall gas supplies, the share of Sindh has declined from 45 to 40 percent, KP from 13 to 12 percent, whereas the share of Balochistan and Punjab remained steady at 11 and 3 percent respectively. 

The main consumer of natural gas was power sector, consuming over 30 percent (1,305 MMCFD), followed by domestic sector with 20 percent (862 MMCFD), fertilizer 19 percent (829 MMCFD), general industry 8 percent (365 MMCFD) and captive power 5 percent (203 MMCFD) of the total gas consumed during FY 2020-21. In province-wise gas consumption, Punjab’s share was 52 percent (1,426 MMCFD), Sindh 39 percent (1,052 MMCFD), KP 7 percent (190 MMCFD) and Balochistan 2 percent (64 MMCFD) of total gas consumption during the year under review.

Meanwhile, the consumption of natural gas in transport sector has declined by around 67 percent during the past one decade which has resulted in the closure of more than 700 CNG stations across Pakistan.

During 2020-21 the consumption of natural gas in transport sector has declined by around 15 percent to 108 MMCFD from 127 MMCFD in 2019-20, said OGRA’s State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry Report 2020-21. 

The report said that more than 700 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations across Pakistan have closed down as the consumption of natural gas in transport sector has decreased by approximately 67 percent, from 325 MMCFD during 2011-2012 to 108 MMCFD during 2020-21, the report said.

According the report, the sectoral gas consumption has also declined from 3.11 percent in 2019-20 to 2.51 percent during 2020-21. 

On liquefied natural gas (LNG), the report said that the import of LNG to Pakistan has increased by 13 percent, from 857 MMCFD in 2019-20 to 969 MMCFD during FY 2020-21.

The share of LNG in overall natural gas supplies has increased up to 33 percent in 2020-21 from 29 percent during previous year. 

Regarding the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sector, the report said that the consumption of LPG by industrial sector witnessed huge increase of over 73 percent during 2020-21 whereas domestic and commercial sectors also observed a hike of around 1 percent each during same period.

According to OGRA’s State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry Report 2020-21, around 61 percent of the LPG demand is met through local production and the rest of 39 percent was imported during FY 2020-21. 

According to the report, LPG share in country’s primary energy supplies is 1.3 percent. The current size of LPG market is around 1,292,539 MT/annum which is 12.46 percent higher as compared to 1,149,352 MT/annum during 2019-20. LPG consumption by industrial sector witnessed huge increase of over 73 percent (from 184,328 to 319,265 M. Tons) during 2020-21 whereas domestic and commercial sectors also observed an increase of around 1 percent each (from 472,056 to 475,678 M. Tons) and (from 492,968 to 497,595 M. Tons) respectively during FY 2020-21.  

In FY 2020-21 the import of LPG has increased by 12.51 percent and 24 percent in refineries production (from 161,434 to 200,019 M. Tons). LPG supplies from gas producing fields declined by 5 percent from 593,061 to 560,922 M. Tons during the same period.

The current data shows that there are 23 operational LPG auto refueling stations, 11 LPG producers, 219 LPG marketing companies having more than 5,500 authorized distributors and 56 LPG equipment manufacturing companies.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s import of crude oil and finished petroleum products has increased by 27.82 percent and 23.70 percent respectively during 2020-21. The consumption of petroleum products has increased by 12.95 percent reaching 19.92 million tons in 2020-21 as compared to 17.63 million tons in 2019-20, said OGRA’s State of the Regulated Industry Report 2020-21.

According to the report, the consumption of petroleum products in power sector has witnessed a huge surge of 41.70 percent to 2.16 million tons during FY2020-21 as compared to 1.53 million tons during FY 2019-20, followed by transport sector where consumption increased by 13.12 percent, from 13.99 million tons in FY2019-20 to 15.83 million tons in FY 2020-21, agriculture by 12.59 percent and industry 6.56 percent as compared to last year. Consumption of POL products in domestic, export and government sectors declined by 82.37 percent, 37.73 percent and 30.09 percent respectively during 2020-21 as compared to last year. 

Product wise analysis revealed that consumption of FO increased by 23.27 percent, HSD 17.02 percent, MS (including HOBC) 12.69 percent in FY 2020-21 as compared to FY 2019-20. Whereas the consumption of aviation fuel, LDO and kerosene declined by 48.10 percent, 22.89 percent and 16.82 percent respectively during the same period. 

The report said that the import of crude oil has increased to 8.66 million tons in 2020-21 from 6.77 million tons reported in FY 2019-20. 

The import of finished petroleum products has increased to 10.02 million tons during 2020-21 from 8.10 million tons in 2019-20.  The oil production from Pakistani refineries has increased by 14.48 percent to 10.66 million tons in 2020-21 from 9.31 million tons during the previous FY 2019-20.

Among the refineries PARCO was the best performing refinery which has increased production by 55 percent from 2.85 million tons in 2019-20 to 4.42 million tons during FY 2020-21, said the Ogra’s State of the Regulated Petroleum  Industry Report 2020-21.

The report said that in production of PARCO is followed by Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) whose production has increased by 18.04 percent from 1.56 million tons in 2019-20 to 1.84 million tons during 2020-21. 

The production of Pakistan Refinery Limited has enhanced by 2.55 percent, from 1.21million tons in 2019-20 to 1.24 million tons in 2020-21.

Production of Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited (BPPL) has declined by around 19.90 percent, from 2.13 million tons in 2019-20 to 1.70 million tons during 2020-21. 

The production of National Refinery Limited declined by 7.1 percent from 1.56 million tons in FY 2019-20 to 1.45 million tons during FY 2070-21.The market share of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has increased by 3 percent to 47 percent in 2020-21 from 44 percent in FY 2019-20. 

The oil marketing companies have built storage capacity of 0.58 million tons for petrol (MS) and 0.88 million tons for high speed diesel (HSD) at various depots spread over across the country by the end of FY 2020-21, stated by OGRA’s State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry report 2020-21.

Article source: https://www.nation.com.pk/24-Sep-2022/production-of-indigenous-gas-declines-consumption-up