Rehman and Deyuan Energy, Sustainability and Society (2018) 8:26

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-018-0167-y
Energy, Sustainability
and Society

SHORT COMMUNICATION Open Access

Pakistan’s energy scenario: a forecast of

commercial energy consumption and
supply from different sources through 2030
Abdul Rehman* and Zhang Deyuan

Abstract
Background: The energy sector in Pakistan is facing several challenges resulting from insufficient production. The
major objective of this study is to identify and forecast commercial energy consumption and supply from different
sources, including oil and petroleum, gas, electricity, and coal sources.
Methods: A forecasting method was utilized for investigating the future commercial energy consumption and
supply from different sources.
Results: Forecasting results in the study reveal that the energy sector of Pakistan needs further attention to
improve this sector, including the initiation of new policies and funding schemes to fulfill the country’s demand.
Conclusion: Therefore, this study suggests that the government of Pakistan pay further attention to improving
commercial energy consumption and supply from different sources to solve the energy crisis in the country.
Keywords: Energy consumption, Oil, Gas, Electricity, Agriculture and coal

Background Electricity—as a highly versatile form of energy—stimu-

The energy sector of Pakistan is in crisis as a result of lates economic performance and plays an important role
insufficient energy production to meet increased de- in the development of every sector of the economy. Over
mand over the last decades. The major causes include the past few decades, inadequate energy policy and en-
debt recycling, financial conditions, and energy supplies. ergy production have plunged several countries into a
Natural gas and oil are the most dominant energy severe power crisis, leading to poor economic perform-
sources, with more than 80% of energy supply compan- ance [5, 6].
ies dependent on natural gas and oil. Low and cheap en- Over the past few decades, the failures of Pakistan’s
ergy production from hydro electrical and coal resources energy policy have plunged the country into a severe
are the main constraints that result in energy shortages power crisis and have led to poor economic perform-
and inadequate electricity production [1]. ance. Like other advanced countries [7, 8], the demand
The demand for energy in Pakistan has increased due to for electricity in Pakistan is partly determined by issues
the high population growth rate, which is estimated at such as rapid population growth, economic expansion,
about 3% per year. The use of coal, natural gas, oil, and li- and electricity prices. However, Pakistan’s peculiar prob-
quefied petroleum gas has grown to accommodate the sur- lems and its short-term power crisis arise from stealing,
ging demands in the country’s energy sector. According to abuse, and over-utilization of electricity in homes and
the Pakistan Economic Survey, consumption in the energy manufacturing as well as corruption, exaggerated, unrea-
sector was 38.8 MTOE (million tonnes of oil equivalent) sonable or low institutional losses, mismanagement, and
[2], which increased to 70.5 MTOE in 2016 [3, 4]. political arguments over large energy projects [9].
The energy sector plays a vital and important role in Multiple research studies have demonstrated that the
the development and economic growth of any country. energy sector is facing challenges globally in relation to
sustainability, economics, and the environment. A range
* Correspondence: abdlrehman@ahu.edu.cn of models has been used to forecast and predict energy
Research Center of Agricultural-Rural-Peasants, Anhui University, Hefei, China

© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Rehman and Deyuan Energy, Sustainability and Society (2018) 8:26 Page 2 of 5

consumption and production. The major aim of this study ability of end users to reduce their oil consumption, and
is to forecast energy consumption from different sources the degree of dependence on imported oil [10].
including oil and petroleum, gas, electricity, and coal. Figure 1 presents an overview of published data with
regard to energy consumption of oil and petroleum in
Data sources and methodology the household, industry, agriculture, transport, power,
Data and other government sectors as well as the projected
In this study, time series data was used to forecast the consumption to 2030 in tonnes.
levels of future energy consumption of oil, gas, electri- Natural gas is the dominant fuel in Pakistan, accounting
city, and coal. The data was collected from the Eco- for about 47% of the major energy demand in 2012. Since
nomic Survey of Pakistan and the Ministry of Petroleum 2000, the main energy sources in Pakistan are natural gas
and Natural Resources and Hydrocarbon Development and oil, accounting for 50% and 29% of total energy con-
Institute of Pakistan (HDIP). sumption, respectively [11]. The annual consumption of
natural gas, as one of the primary fossil fuels, has grown by
Methods 2.5%. The annual production of natural gas comprised
To forecast future energy consumption of oil, gas, elec- 23.9% of the global demand for energy in 2012 [12], and
tricity, and coal, the following equation was used for this percentage is predicted to grow to 50% by 2020 [13].
forecasting a + bx, where Figure 2 illustrates the levels of consumption of natural gas
energy in different sectors from 2000 and includes the pro-
a ¼ y−bx jected consumption until 2030. The figure shows consump-
and tion in the household, commercial, cement, power,
fertilizer, and industrial sector.
P
ðx−xÞðy−yÞ Electricity consumption in Pakistan accounts for about
b¼ P 40% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2013,
ðx−xÞ2
67.2% of the world’s electricity production came from
In this equation, the variables x and y represent the fossil fuel power plants, making them key players in the
sample means average (known_x’s) and average development of GHG mitigation and strategies for the
(known_y’s). energy and power production sectors [14, 15]. Power
supply plays a vital role in achieving sustainability and
Results and discussion economic prosperity in any country. In Pakistan, a devel-
The demand for energy has grown rapidly with the in- oping nation with a population of over 200 million
crease in usage and supply. The extent to which the people, the demand for electricity is increasing exponen-
economy is compromised by price increases depends on tially, due to an increased demand in both the household
the proportion of oil as a share of national income, the and manufacturing sectors. Figure 3 not only shows the

Fig. 1 Forecasted oil and petroleum energy consumption in households, industry, agriculture, transport, power, and other government sectors
from 2000 to 2030 (Authors’ computations)
Rehman and Deyuan Energy, Sustainability and Society (2018) 8:26 Page 3 of 5

Fig. 2 Forecasted gas energy consumption in the households, industry, agriculture, transport, power, and industry from 2000 to 2030
(Authors’ computations)

known electricity consumption in different sectors from increases. Coal is a major resource for generating electricity
2000 but also gives projections to 2030 including electri- and currently supplies 41% of global electricity demand.
city use for traction, households, commerce, industry, Coal accounts for 40% of the total global anthropogenic
agriculture, street lights, and other governmental fields. emissions of carbon dioxide, with about 70% stemming
Hower et al. [16] determined that the demand for energy from the global electricity sector. For the production of
in Pakistan is growing rapidly as the GDP growth rate heat and electricity, coal is considered as an important fuel,

Fig. 3 Forecasted electricity energy consumption in traction, households, commercial, industrial, agriculture, street light, and other government
from 2000 to 2030 (Authors’ computations)
Rehman and Deyuan Energy, Sustainability and Society (2018) 8:26 Page 4 of 5

Fig. 4 Forecasted coal energy consumption in households, power and brick kilns from 2000 to 2030 (Authors’ computations)

while oil is used for transportation, supplying about 93% Acknowledgements

of the energy for transportation globally and for the EU The authors are grateful to the Research Center of Agricultural-Rural-
Peasants, Anhui University Hefei, China for its moral support. Moreover, the
[17]. The current state of the world’s energy is facilitated authors are also indebted to the reviewers for their positive suggestions that
by research and development with the aim to make the helped to improve the content of this study.
existing energy use more efficient. Coal energy consump-
Funding
tion and its forecasting to 2030 for households; power and The paper was supported by the Research Centre of Agricultural-Rural-
brick kilns are shown in Fig. 4. Peasants, Anhui University Hefei, China.

Availability of data and materials

All data and material are available in this paper, so there is no other data to present.
Conclusions and policy implications
Pakistan’s energy sector faces challenges with regard to in- Authors’ contributions
AR conceived the study, collected the data, estimated the model, and
sufficient production and supply. The purpose of this
drafted the manuscript. ZD read the article and made suggestions to the
study was to demonstrate and forecast commercial energy manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
consumption and supply from different sources including
oil and petroleum, gas, electricity, and coal sources. The Ethics approval and consent to participate
It is declared that this paper does not involve any human participants,
data were collected from the Economic Survey of Pakistan human data, or human tissue.
and HDIP.
In Pakistan, the development of appropriate policies Consent for publication
This paper does not include any individual person’s data in any form
for natural gas and oil production is not only neces- (including any individual details, images or videos).
sary for improving and developing the energy sector,
but also for economic development. The studies pro- Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
jections suggest guidelines which the Government of
Pakistan may use to improve energy production from
oil and other alternative sources. To increase Paki- Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
stan’s current ranking in global coal production, it is published maps and institutional affiliations.
necessary to implement greenhouse gas mitigation
technologies and consider alternative energy sources. Received: 29 March 2018 Accepted: 26 July 2018

This study suggests and recommends that the energy

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