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03/09/2010  
 Headlines: Senate told Seven airports shut in country,     ISB: The Senate was informed Friday that seven airports in different cities have been closed due to suspension of PIA flights.     The PIA suspended the flights due to a daily loss of Rs19 million during last year.     Suprem Court orders arrest of Gilani’s ex-PRO,     ISB: SC has asked the FIA to arrest former media coordinator of the prime minister, Khurram Rasool.     Present him in the court on 24th January otherwise action would be taken against the Agency.     Khurram Rasool is accused of corruption of Rs530 million.     Musharraf denies delay in return,     LONDON/KARACHI: Former military ruler & chief of (APML) Pervez Musharraf has rejected reports about suspension of programme to return home.     he would be back in Pakistan according to the scheduled programme.     SBP injects Rs 242.5bn in market,     Trade thru dry port fetches Rs1bn tax,     India SC rejects army chief’s plea,     100 more engines by year-end: Bilour,
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 Refiners margins slide 1pc QoQ



Ahmed Siddique
KARACHI: The downward price trend of crude oil has adversely affected the domestic Gross Refinery Margin (GRM) for the month of September, declined 17 per cent MoM to $2.61/bbl.
Amongst the individual companies, PRL's GRM slashed by 39 per cent MoM, followed by BYCO, ATRL and NRL with reduction of 21, 13 and 6 per cent MoM respectively.
However, September GRM on YoY basis, post a very encouraging picture as industry GRMs were in red last year at $0.15/bbl, with only one company ATRL posting GRMs in the green.
As per the research analyst of InvestCap, overall domestic GRMs for 1QFY11 are expected to stand at the levels of $2.57/bbl, down 1 per cent QoQ, but are massive improvement from negative $0.80/bbl in 1QFY10. A point worth noticing here is that 1Q marks the beginning of sluggish price period in crude oil cycle, with GRMs showing declining trend in 1Q and bottoming out in 2Q, he added. Therefore, the said decline is in line with the same historical trend, and is not reflective of a fundamental shift in the refinery business. With crude oil cycle entering a slack period between the two crusts of driving and winter seasons, oil prices have remained under-pressure despite showing a marginal increase of 1 per cent MoM (WTI) and 2 per cent MoM (Arab Light) during Aug-10 to stand at the levels of $76.82/ bbl and $74.28/bbl respectively.
With the input cost stable, some of the petroleum product prices showed the same stability, while others still diverged. At one hand, prices of Naphtha, HSFO and HSD increased by 5 per cent MoM, 5 per cent MoM and 2 per cent MoM during Aug-10, while on the other, prices of Kero and Mogas (Petrol) declined by 1 per cent MoM and each. With $/Rs parity stagnant during last month, the said change translated into a 1.1 per cent MoM and 1.2 per cent MoM increase in the petroleum prices at ex-refinery and retail level, with only prices of petrol and HOBC depicting a decline. The prices of the said products have declined by 1.0 per cent MoM and 0.8 per cent MoM at ex-refinery level, while reducing by 0.7 per cent MoM and 0.6 per cent MoM at retail level respectively.