ISLAMABAD: The petroleum division on Tuesday said it is beefing up supply of furnace oil through enhanced capacity utilisation of local refineries and arranging import of about 250,000 tonnes of oil to meet energy shortfalls next month.

In a statement it said that for the period of fuel shortage arising out of dry docking of an LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal, a mitigation plan had been put in place.

An official said the Kunar Pasakhi Deep field was getting back on track after annual turnaround and had started injecting about 100 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas. However, the Qadirpur field would remain unavailable for a few days.

Mitigation plan has been put in place: petroleum division

The petroleum division said from June 29, the floating storage regasification unit of first terminal belonging to Engro was on dry docking and measures had been taken to minimise its impact on various sectors of the economy.

Until July 7, there will be a reduction in LNG supply from the first terminal. However, supplies from the second terminal will continue to be at its contracted capacity of 600mmcfd.

During first two days of complete closure of the first terminal, the second terminal will provide maximum supplies. The total supply from both the LNG terminals will gradually ramp up to 824mmcfd from July 4.

The normal supplies from the first terminal will resume from July 5 and total supply from both terminals will be 1,152mmcfd.

During the period of less availability of RLNG (re-gasified liquefied natural gas), the gas companies have been authorised to manage their load as per government approved gas supply priority order whereby uninterrupted supplies will be made to domestic, commercial, power and export industry. As such, in order to meet the shortfall, gas companies are curtailing supplies to non-export industry, fertiliser plants, CNG (compressed natural gas) stations and cement industry in that order of approved priority till July 5.

Some additional indigenous gas supplies are also being injected in the system during this period.

The power generation demand during the dry docking will also be catered throu­­gh furnace oil and high speed diesel.

The petroleum division has directed the refineries to maximise their production capacity in this period and the refineries have increased their regular supplies for the power plants. The Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and other oil companies have been asked to maximise supplies to the power sector.

In order to augment indigenous supplies, the PSO has also been directed to float tenders for two cargoes of high sulphur furnace oil and the suppliers are expected to deliver supplies from July 12 to 10 and July 12 to 31, respectively.

In addition, the PSO has also issued two tenders for cargoes of light sulphur furnace oil and the suppliers would deliver supplies from July 7 to 15 and July 16 to 25, respectively. Oil and gas exploration and production companies have been asked to enhance production within possible limits.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2021