MUZAFFARGARH, Aug 17 The Pak-Arab Refinery Company (Parco) will resume fuel supply to various parts of the country in five to six days when the roads leading to Qasba Gujrat are rehabilitated, officials told Dawn on Tuesday.
Long queues of oil-tankers awaiting the opening of Parco can be seen on Mahmoodkot Road.
Parco, which supplies 35 per cent of the oil consumption to the country, was shut down on Aug 8 last when floods from the river Indus hit the installation and forced the management to shift the staff to Multan and other places. The main depot of the Pakistan State Oil, which is located in Mahmood-kot, also was inundated.
“Now our staff is back to work as the flooding has receded but the refinery has yet to run its production unit,” said an official who sought anonymity. He said the refinery had enough reservoir of refined fuel to meet the needs of the country and all they needed at this stage is opening of roads.
He said the roads would soon be cleared for oil tankers after which the refinery would resume the supply. The refinery supplies petroleum products through a network of oil tankers. The roads leading to Qasba Gujrat where the refinery is located are in bad shape. Dera Ghazi Khan-Muzaffargarh Road, which had been submerged under water due to breaches at Baseera, Head Kalu and Ghazi Ghat was cleared for heavy traffic on Tuesday. Near Baseera, where floodwater of the Muzaffargarh Canal is on the road, the passage is potholed and a rough patch for loaded vehicles to pass through.
Portions of the road between Karam Dad Qureshi Town and Qasba Gujrat have developed ditches and the road is closed for heavy traffic.
“We are trying to rehabilitate the roads leading to Parco on a war footing,” said the sub-divisional officer of the Provincial Highway Authority. “I hope the breaches on roads will be plugged in five or six days and cleared for oil tankers,” he said.
Meanwhile, the PSO management did not give any deadline regarding the resumption of operation. Logistics Manager Hanif Sultan said first floodwaters had to be flushed out from the depot and then the situation would be viewed about the supply operation.
He said at the moment they were supplying fuel from Sher Shah Depot.
When the floods forced the refinery and the PSO to shut their supplies, hundreds of oil tanker drivers were left marooned on Muzaffargarh roads because most of the roads linking the district with other parts of the country were closed.
An oil tanker driver from Peshawar, Gul Khan said they faced starvation in the past week when the Muzaffargarh city had been evacuated because of flood threats and they had nothing to eat.
“We cannot leave our oil-tankers here on the road because it was a source of livelihood,” he said, when asked why he did not flee the city after flood warnings.
