Regular grade petrol production in Oman surges ahead

Muscat: Oman recorded a significant 127.3 per cent year-on-year growth in the production of regular petrol during the first quarter of 2016 with output surging to 1.72 million barrels compared with 758,900 barrels produced last year, according to the latest data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). However, Supergrade petrol output showed a decline of 11.1 per cent over the period to 4.62 million barrels, from 5.20 million barrels for the same period in 2015.
The NCSI bulletin indicated that during the first three months, the total petroleum output (petrol, jet fuel, oils, LPG, propylene, naphtha, long residual and others taken together) from Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Co. (Orpic) registered a 6.1 per cent fall compared with last year, with production falling to 18.94 million barrels, compared with 20.16 million achieved in 2015.
There has been a marked increase of 46.4 per cent in the production of jet fuel (aviation fuel) by the end of March 2016, which surged to 1.77 million barrels from 1.21 million barrels in the same period of 2015.
Fuel oil output, on the other hand, declined by 40.3 per cent to touch 258,400 barrels as against 432,900 barrels last year. Gas oil output too suffered a production fall of 14.6 per cent to touch 4.34 million barrels compared with 5.08 million barrels in the first quarter of 2015.
Meanwhile, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) production in the first quarter receded by 34.8 per cent to 521,900 barrels from 800,800 barrels for the same period last year.
In the case of long residual, the fall in output was 6.7 per cent, with production touching 4.62 million barrels as against 4.96 million barrels a year ago.
Also, production of SR Naphtha fell by 6.5 per cent to 783,700 barrel as against 838,200 barrel, while propylene production declined by 63.8 per cent to 198,700 barrel from last year’s 548,400 barrel.
Other products showed a 76.2 per cent slump in output over the first three months compared with last year figures.
The total output of regular and super petrol of Orpic stood at 2.02 million barrels and 23.34 million barrels, respectively, last year. Interestingly, regular petrol last year accounted for just 2 per cent of Orpic’s total petroleum products output while super petrol had a share of 28 per cent.