The production of oil from Pakistani refineries witnessed an increase by 14.48 percent to 10.66 million tons in 2020-21 from 9.31 million tons during the last FY 2019-20.
According to the OGRAs State of the Regulated Petroleum Industry Report 2020-21, among the refineries PARCO remained the best performing refinery, whose production has increased by 55 percent from 2.85 million tons in 2019-20 to 4.42 million tons during FY 2020-21.
The report stated that in production PARCO is followed by Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) which has increased its production by 18.04 percent from 1.56 million tons in 2019-20 to 1.84 million tons during 2020-21; while production of Pakistan Refinery Limited has increased by 2.55 percent from 1.21million tons in 2019-20 to 1.24 million tons in 2020-21.
However, the production of Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited (BPPL) has decreased by around 19.90 percent from 2.13 million tons in 2019-20 to 1.70 million tons during 2020-21. Similarly, the production of National Refinery Limited also showed a decline of 7.1 percent from 1.56 million tons in FY 2019-20 to 1.45 million tons during FY 2070-21.
PARCO remained a major contributor to POL production with over 41 percent share followed by ARL with 17 percent share and BPPL, NRL, and PRL with 16 percent, 14 percent, and 12 percent share respectively during 2020-21.
Talking to the media,?Sana Tawfik, a senior analyst at Arif Habib, said that petrol prices were sure to go up because of the rupee devaluation. Pakistani currency has now lost 9.6 percent so far this month, which blows up our import costs.
The oil price benchmark has slid over the last four months, wiping almost 22 percent of its value since June 1 among global economic recession fears. But not everyone was surprised on September 21 after the government increased the petrol price by Rs. 1.45 per liter while keeping the price of high-speed diesel unchanged at Rs. 247.43.