Senate body wants reduction of demurrage on imports of POL

ISLAMABAD: Senate standing committee on Petroleum Thursday directed the petroleum division to develop the mechanism to reduce the demurrage incurred on imports of Petroleum Oil Lubricants (POL) in last five years.

The committee met under the chairmanship of Senator Mohsin Aziz while Senator Sardar Muhammad Azam Khan Musa Khel, Qurat ul Ain Marri, Mir Kabir Ahmed Muhammad Shahi, Atta Ur Rehman, Shamim Afridi, Taj Muhammad Afridi, Jehanzeb Jamaldini and Minister for Petroleum Division Ghulam Sarver Khan also attended the meeting.

The committee directed DG oil to submit the detailed report regarding demurrage within two months and directed to develop strong mechanism to reduce demurrage as soon as possible.

Managing Director of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) Jehangir Ali Shah told the committee that Pakistan State Oil is required to pay 20 million UD dollars o account of demurrage for last 5 years while and other than PSO the industry have to may 30 million US dollars of last 5 years (2013-18).

He said, PSO is in process of enhancing shortage at Keamari and linking Port Keamari with Port Qasim through pipeline.

He said PSO is facing shortage of storage capacity at ports, PSO have capacity of 1 million metrics but still needs to extend the capacity and trying to add 12 lac 70 thousand metrics ton extra. 17 Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) have less than required storage capacity.

He told that Import have increased by 4.6 million MT (from 19.3 to 23.9) in five years, the imports have mainly handled at Port Qasim and Keamari.

Chairman committee directed Director General (DG) Oil to submit report regarding Storage capacity of Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) and Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to submit their audit report.

PSO Member Logistics told the committee that, After Ahmedpur incident in 2017 OGRA has reinforced implementation of Safety/technical standards for tank lorries to carry out safe POL movement across the country.

After the incident to reduce the risk of accidents but now new deadline have been given to upgrade the tank lorries fleet in two years ending by September 2019.

After September 2019, we will take action against the contractors who would not upgrade their tank Lorries according to the standards issued by National Highway Authority (NHA), he added.