March 07, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 17, 1428

ISLAMABAD, March 6: The Attock Refinery Ltd (ARL) said on Tuesday said that the audit had pointed out certain anomalies in the southern crude oil transportation which required regularisation through amendments in the relevant rules.

The company issued the statement in response to the Monday’s observations of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly, which had directed the petroleum ministry to mount a probe to unearth the racket of certain oil companies minting millions of rupees in the name of inland freight margins.

The ARL spokesman said the refinery had explained to the PAC that the country had saved several billions rupees through savings in product transportation cost which otherwise would have been incurred had this crude oil not been processed at the ARL.

“It was explained to the PAC during the meeting that the net accumulated savings accruing on this account after accounting for the crude transportation cost was over Rs2.7billion along with foreign exchange savings of over $180million which otherwise would have been required to be spent on import of equivalent volumes of petroleum products produced from the southern crude oil processed at the ARL,” the spokesman stated.

He said the PAC had advised the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources to get these figures of savings verified by audit.

The refund of crude freight was duly sanctioned by the ministry of petroleum and the finance division after it was established that processing of southern crude oil at the ARL was beneficial to the country, he added.