Petrol pumps strike postponed for two days

KARACHI: The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) has postponed the countrywide strike of petrol pumps for two days after receiving a written assurance from the federal government, ARY News reported on Friday.

State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik and the PPDA delegation held talks at the PSO headquarters after the PPDA’s strike call for demanding a hike in the dealers’ margin.

The talks remained inconclusive as the petroleum dealers rejected the state minister’s offer to hike the margin by Rs2.65 per litre while the dealers were demanding Rs5 per litre hike.

READ: Petroleum dealers announce countrywide strike on July 22

After the failure of negotiations, the state minister constituted a committee to review the dealers margin. The committee will finalise the dealers margin in 48 hours.

Musadik Malik and PPDA will hold another round of talks after two days. The dealers will announce their next strategy after reviewing the recommendations of the federal government’s committee.

Earlier, State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik paid an emergency visit to Karachi and reached Pakistan State Oil (PSO) headquarters after petroleum dealers announced a countrywide strike on Saturday

The delegation held negotiations with the state minister to increase dealers margin and steps to curb smuggling of diesel and petrol from Iran.

READ: After petroleum dealers, LPG sellers also call strike

During the talks, Malik offered Rs2.65 per litre hike to the dealers margin, however, the dealers insisted on the Rs5 per litre increase in their commission. The negotiations continued for 1.5 hours, however, they remained inconclusive so far.

The current dealers’ margin is Rs6 per litre on the petroleum products, whereas, they demanded to make another hike to the margin by Rs5.

The dealers’ commission had been increased by more than 25% to Rs7 per litre in 2022, witnessing a hike in OMC’s margins from Rs3 and Rs3.68 per litre on petrol and HSD to Rs6 per litre in November 2022.