Petroleum consumption falls by 30pc in lockdown

From the barrel to the pump and subsequently to the consumers as a whole, the Covid-19 has started creating a domino effect.

Due to an all-out countrywide shutdown since July 23 to contain the spread of coronavirus, industries, public transport and the like run by fuel came to a halt, thereby leading to a free fall in sale.

The consumption of petroleum has dropped by 30 per cent due to the current lockdown induced by the raging pandemic, according to a source in the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).

To deal with the second wave of Covid-19 infection in the country, shutdown came in force from May 1, but the strict lockdown from July 23 hit fuel consumption severely hard.

According to the BPC, petroleum consumption fell in July 2021 by around 30 per cent, which is also lower than the previous fall when first lockdown got underway in the last week of March 2020.

From July 1 to July 26 the petroleum intake was around 3.49 lakh tonnes, which was 5.11 lakh tonnes last month.

As the industries are closed and vehicles are left idle in their terminals, petroleum use has turned low, said Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad, BPC general manager, Commercial and Marketing.

“The use of diesel, octane, petrol, jet fuel has also gone down. Given the current situation, the decrease rate is not unusual,” he added.

Diesel accounts for three-quarters of all fuel oil consumed in the country.

Around 60 per cent of fuel oil is used in vehicles while its utilisation is more during irrigation season from December to May every year.

In 2019-20, petroleum consumption in the country fell by 15 per cent due to the lockdown imposed in March, a peak period for irrigation.

Some 5.5 million tonnes of gasoline were used in FY 20, whereas in FY 2018-19, the quantity was 6.5 million tonnes.

During the limited lockdown in FY 21 that witnessed a low rate of infection, fuel sale went up. An estimated 6.1 million tonnes of gasoline were sold in the just-concluded financial year of 2020-21.

The biggest drop in fuel intake is attributed to the reason that there is no vehicular movement following the countrywide shutdown while the filling stations are counting bad days.

According to the Petrol Pump Owners, the use of gasoline by vehicles has come down to at least 80 per cent.

Since July 23 when the country went into further lockdown, fuel sale went down by more than two-thirds, said Ehsaunr Rahman Chowdhury, president, Bangladesh Petrol Pump Owners Association for Chattogram Division.

“For my filling station in cantonment area under the port city, I used to have three to four fuel tankers every day from central oil depot in Patenga. Now it’s only one,” he said. During the shutdown, filling stations in urban areas sell less fuel because octane and petrol are used more in city vehicles, but those adjacent to highways and rural areas are selling more as goods transportation is out of the purview of the enforced measure.

Three BPC subsidiaries – Padma, Meghna and Jamuna – market fuel oil across the country. Many ships carrying fuel oil are not able to unload since depots are yet to be emptied out.

“On July 18, we came to Jamuna oil depot in Chandpur from Chattogram with more than 1000 tonnes of fuel oil, but failed to offload them because the depot is still full,” said Nabi Alam, captain of MT Nasiyuat, a master oil tanker on the inland route.

Most tankers carrying fuel oil from Chattogram to various destinations across the country a week ago could not be unloaded as almost all depots are still occupied with oil, he explained.

The country stores fuel oil for maximum 45 days and consumes 16,000 to 17,000 tonnes daily, ‍according to BPC.