Cost of Petroleum Imports falls by 15% in July: PBS

Cost of petroleum imports has fallen down by 15.33% in July as the country imported petroleum related commodities worth $1.27 billion during that month.

A month before that, during June 2018, the value of petroleum related commodities imported into the country, stood at $1.5 billion. However, compared to last year, import of petroleum related commodities are still very large, having increased by 34.29% over the year as imports during July 2017 were worth close to $947 million.

Pakistan imported petroleum products worth $556.17 million in July, a 16.71% decline over the $667.76 million worth of petroleum products imported in June.

The largest month-on-month fall in the import of petroleum related commodities was for crude petroleum, imports of which fell down by 24.26% over the month, data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics revealed. Pakistan imported crude oil worth $371.7 million in July 2018. Compared to July 2017, import of crude petroleum has however surged by 70% as the value of imports last year stood at $218.5 million.

Import of LNG on the other hand has demonstrated a marginal increase of 0.35% this month, being the only petroleum-related commodity that has not witnessed a decline in its value of imports.

However, it also the very commodity that has witnessed the largest growth in the cost of imports over the year, having grown by 143.79% over the value of LNG imports recorded in July 2017. LNG imports have been brought in at a cost of $332 million in July, while in the previous month (June) and the previous year (July 2017), imports were priced at $330.9 million and $136.2 million respectively.

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