KARACHI: Attock Refinery Ltd has shut down two of its crude distillation units temporarily to manage refinery operations, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.

The refinery, which has a nameplate capacity of 53,400 barrels per day, said it’d be operating at a throughput of about 60 per cent going forward because the despatch pattern of petrol and diesel for the current month continues to remain depressed. “This, if continued, would result in the curtailment of crude intake from oilfields with an adverse effect on associated gas as well,” it said.

Stocks of petrol and diesel at Attock Refinery Ltd reached “very high levels” with very little/no ullage in storage tanks, especially those containing petrol, it said.

Ullage refers to the empty space in a refinery’s storage tanks. Buyers of petrol and diesel, which are oil marketing companies (OMCs) that operate retail fuel stations, aren’t lifting the products from the refinery, which has forced the crude oil processor to reduce operations for the time being.

The company said it also told the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) that surplus inventories of products were available to meet market demand.

Speaking to Dawn, Ogra spokesperson Imran Ghaznavi said the regulator of the oil and gas sector convened a meeting of senior representatives from refineries and major OMCs on Tuesday.

“A detailed review was carried out of the fuel uplifting by all OMCs against the committed production of refineries. OMCs that were short in uplifting the products were advised to enhance their off-take,” he said, adding that Ogra will review the situation next week and take corrective action if noncompliance was observed again.

Last week, Attock Refinery Ltd alerted the government about an imminent closure of its plants because of the increasing reliance of OMCs on imports. It also demanded an audit of the transportation cost that’s being charged to consumers through product prices.

In separate letters to Minister for Petroleum Mohammad Ali and Ogra Chairman Masroor Khan, refinery’s CEO Adil Khattak said OMCs weren’t lifting their allocated quotas for petrol and diesel while relying on imported fuel.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2023