KARACHI  -  Pakistan grapples with a sig­nificant setback in its energy sector as furnace oil sales plummet by 61% in the first half of the current financial year, according to The Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) statistics. The coun­try’s sales from July to Decem­ber 2023 amounted to 0.56 million tonnes, a stark con­trast to the 1.45 million tonnes recorded in the same period the previous year.

December 2023 witnessed a 4 percent decline in furnace oil sales compared to November, marking a persistent down­ward trend. Notably, Decem­ber 2023 showed a 36 percent reduction in sales compared to the same month in 2022, indi­cating ongoing challenges in the energy market. The broad­er petroleum product sector is also affected, experiencing a 15% year-on-year decrease in sales during the first half of the current financial year.