The local refineries throughput has increased to 673,000 tons in February 2011, up by a massive 20 percent as compared to the same period last year. However, during the first eight months of current fiscal year, the refineries throughput stood at 5.1 million tons, down by 6.3 percent over the same period a year back.
"Despite much speculation regarding the change in oil pricing formula and its adverse implication on refinery operations, domestic refineries operated at 14 month high level of 76 percent capacity in February 2011", Nauman Khan, an analyst at Topline Securities said.
However, during the first eight months of FY11 refineries throughput continues to lag behind from that of last year, primarily on account of month long plant closure of Pakistan's largest refinery - PARCO and operational issues cast by circular debt on BYCO and PRL, he added.
During the eight-month period of FY11, refineries throughput declined to 5.1 million tons as compared to 5.4 million tons in the corresponding period last year. Amongst the individual companies, Attock Refinery Limited (ATRL) and National Refinery Limited (NRL) capacity utilisation stood at 90 percent and 86 percent, respectively and were the only two refineries to show an up-tick in their throughput in the eight months in FY11. With lower exposure to the circular debt and superior product quality, these refineries are reaping benefits of rejuvenated refinery margins, he added.
On the other hand, Parco throughput declined by a 20 percent on account of aforementioned reason while Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) and BYCO Petroleum (BYCO) depicted a decline of 3 percent and 37 percent, respectively, due to revamping and circular debt issues. Product wise break-up shows that production of all the products (with the exception of HOBC) witnessed a declining trend. The production of furnace oil (FO) and high speed diesel (HSD) declined by 5.3 percent and 1.6 percent to 2.0 million tons and 1.6 million tons, respectively.
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