Pakistan’s fuel oil demand is expected to fall sharply over the next three years as growing LNG imports help the country move to a gas-based energy economy. Fuel oil demand is likely to drop from 9.6 million mt in fiscal 2016-2017, running from July to June, to 4.5 million mt or less by fiscal 2019-2020, according to most of the companies surveyed by S&P Global Platts. The companies surveyed are Pakistan State Oil, the country’s largest fuel oil importer and marketing company, and four Karachi-based brokerage houses — Intermarket Securities, Foundation Securities, Topline Securities and Optimus Capital Management. The most bearish estimate by Optimus Capital Management points to a consumption of 2 million mt/year in fiscal 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, versus the most bullish one by Intermarket Securities at 7.3 million mt in 2018-2019 and 6.5 million mt in 2019-2020. “We were forecasting overall fuel oil demand to witness flat […]