SINGAPORE, Nov 26: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is seeking to buy up to 1.03 million tons of fuel oil for January-April delivery, tender documents seen on Monday showed, up 11 per cent from its previous four-month tender.

The latest tender, which coincides with an unplanned outage at the 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) Pak-Arab refinery, calls for 12 high-sulphur cargoes of 65,000 tons each and five 50,000-ton low-sulphur parcels for delivery to Karachi on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis, the documents showed.

It closes on December 17 and will remain valid till December 20.

“The heavier requirements are mainly because of the outage at the Parco refinery. They deferred three LSFO cargoes the last time because they didn’t get any offers and they have included it in the current tender,” a Middle East-based trader said.

PSO had bought 151,000 tons of oil products including a 50,000-ton LSFO cargo, for December to March delivery, following the outage at the plant, in Mahmood Kot in the Muzaffargarh district.

The refinery, which was shut down following some mechanical failure on Oct. 28, is expected to be restarted between end-December and mid-January.

PSO last bought up to 780,000 tons of HSFO, for October-January delivery, from Middle East traders Bakri and FAL Oil at premiums of $11.00-$25.00 a ton to Middle East spot quotes, C&F.

It also bought up to 150,000 tons of LSFO at premiums of $69.00-$79.00 a ton, C&F.

The current tender is for eight firm HSFO cargoes of 125-180-centistoke (cst) and four optional lots, as well as three firm (LSFO) parcels, of less than one per cent sulphur, and two optional ones.

The first delivery is for January 5-7 with the rest at unspecified dates between January and April.

PSO, which buys fuel oil mainly for power generation, typically takes only the firm parcels.

—Reuters