ISLAMABAD, June 4: Only 10 per cent of the annual refined petrol requirement is met through imports while 90 per cent is produced locally from imported and locally extracted crude oil.

This was stated by the Minister for Petroleum Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi in reply to a question in the National Assembly by PPP MNA Ms Yasmeen Rehman, who sought details regarding total requirement, local production and imported quantity of petrol and diesel.

However, the minister did not elaborate the actual quantity of crude oil imported for conversion into petrol, diesel at the local refineries.

The quantity of locally-produced oil is 67,352 barrels per day, which is refined into petrol, diesel, etc., and the consumer is made to pay the international price for these products produced at home, which raises questions about transparency in price fixation policy.

The minister told the lower house that the total requirement of petrol in the country stood at 1.450 million metric tons during 2007-08 as against the local production of 1.328 million metric tons from imported and local crude oil, leaving a deficit of 0.122 million metric tons.

To bridge this deficit in local production (refining), the actual import of refined petrol stood at 122,000 metric tons during the first eight months (July-March) of the current fiscal year.

More than half of the import bill goes into import of petroleum products, mostly lubricants which are not produced locally, and the rest of the bill is spent on import of crude oil for converting it into petrol and diesel.

Analysts said the decline in import and consumption of petrol was mainly due to increasing use of compressed natural gas (CNG) in vehicles. Pakistan is the second largest user of CNG after India as fuel in the automobiles in South Asia.

Mr Qureshi said that the total requirement of diesel in the country is eight million metric tons against local production of 3.01 million metric tons from both imported and local crude oil, leaving a wide margin of 4.99 million metric tons.

For meeting this rising demand, the actual import of refined diesel stood at 4.990 million metric tons during July-March period of the current fiscal year.

The lower house was informed that the total requirement of hi-octane is 10,000 metric tons, which is totally met through local production. This shows that the government import bill goes into import of crude oil for convention into petrol and diesel.To another question by PPP legislator Ms Shakeela Khanam Rashid, the minister said that oil pipelines have been laid down to replace movement of petroleum products by road and rail to reduce consumption of petroleum products.