Diesel imports fall by half to 96,368 MT

KARACHI: Pakistan’s import of high speed diesel halved to 96,368 MT in the month of February compared to the month of January 2023 when 188,048 MT of HSD was imported.

Diesel import has seen a downward trend since January, when 388,267 MT of HSD was imported. Following that, the decline started. In the eight months of the current fiscal, a total of 1,570,242 MT was imported by the country.

Petrol imports also showed a slight decline in February, when 433,757 MT were imported compared to 449,211 MT in January this fiscal. A total of 3,491,470 MT of petrol was brought into the country during the first eight months of the current financial year, import data of the oil products showed.

However, the import of crude oil witnessed a big jump in February, as its import went up to 710,915 MT compared to 490,211 MT in January. Crude oil imports totalled 537,0341 MT in the first eight months of this financial year.

According to the oil sector, crude oil was imported in big quantities to process it at local refineries to save foreign exchange as petroleum products consume more foreign exchange, which is in short supply. In dollar terms, the imports of the petroleum group registered 4.62 percent negative growth on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in February 2023 and remained at $1.264 billion compared to $1.326 billion in January. On year-on-year basis, the petroleum group registered one percent growth when compared to $1.252 billion in February 2022.

Petroleum group imports witnessed a negative growth of 8.28 percent during the first eight months (July-February) of the current fiscal year 2022-23 and remained $11.876 billion compared to $12.948 billion during the same period of the last fiscal.

Petroleum products witnessed 14.47 percent negative growth during 8MFY2023 and remained $5.352 billion compared to $6.257 billion during the same period of last fiscal.