Attock, Shell, Hascol, Total Parco major beneficiaries of overnight hike in petrol price

Aftab Ahmed

Islamabad: The government’s move of overnight hefty increase in prices of petrol is going to benefit those oil marketing companies (OMCs) involved in hoarding stocks and fined by the regulator.

These companies include Total Parco, Attock Petroleum, Hascol and Shell. The regulator oil and gas regulatory authority (Ogra) has already imposed a fine of multi-million rupees fine on these companies for involving in hoarding and black marketing of petrol that led to countrywide crisis.

With knowledge of increase in price of petrol in month of July, these companies curtailed supply of petrol to their retail outlets that shifted the entire burden on PSO. These companies have hoarded stocks at Karachi ports and will now be making billions by releasing these stock to retail outlets following hike in petrol price by Rs 25 per litre.

According to figures available with Newztodays.com, Shell Pakistan Limited (SPL) has 20,145 metric tons stock of Mogas RON92 at Kemari, TPPL 14819, HPL 20,485, APL 15,45 metric tons. APL has tock of 23,216 metric tons petrol at PQA.PSO holds a stock of 15857 metric tons at Kemari and 26240 metric tons at PQA.

It is interesting to note that these companies have imported oil and were holding stocks at Karachi ports. Total Parco is subsidiary of Parco refinery but it has also reported and maintain stock at ports. Attock Petroleum Limited (APL) is a subsidiary of Attock Refinery but it had also imported petrol and keeping at Karachi port.

Industry sources say that locally produced petroleum products were expensive were cheaper whereas imported petroleum products were cheaper. Therefore, these oil firms had imported petrol and high speed diesel.

According to oil industry, the market share of PSO in Mogas stood at 34.6 per cent during January-April 2020 which went up to 54.4 per cent in June 2020 when entire burden of supply was shifted to PSO due to curtailment of oil supply by other oil marketing companies.

The share of PSO in supply of High speed diesel (HSD) stood at 39.7 per cent during January-April 2020 but it went up to 64.3 per cent in June 2020.The market share of Shell in Mogas stood at 10.6 percent and down to 5.3 per cent and in diesel from 7.3 to 2.8 percent during the period under review.Total Parco share dropped to 10.1 per cent against 12.9 per cent in mogas and 10.4 to 7.4 percent in diesel.Attock Petroleum share in Mogas dropped to 6.1 against 9.4 per cent and 10.4 to 5.6 per cent in diesel.

The share of other oil marketing companies Hascol, Byco, BE and PUMA dropped from 8.9, 10.4, 3.4 and 1.9 to 8.5,2.1, 0.1 and 0.6 per cent in Mogas respectively. The share in supply of high speed diesel was down from 8.2, 6.4,3.7 and 2.4 to 6.3, 2.2, 0.7 and 1.7 per cent respectively. However, the share of Gas&Oil increased from 10.4 to 11.6 per cent in supply of Mogas. Its share in supply of diesel dropped from 9.7 to 8.3 percent.