Ogra finds 10 OMCs responsible for petrol crisis

ISLAMABAD: According to an Ogra report, ten Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have been found responsible for the petrol crisis that continued to haunt Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for almost 12-14 days. Owing to the crisis, the routine life of people had come to a standstill and the Nawaz Sharif government had been shaken.
The companies have been found not to have maintained their petrol stock for 20 days, according to the preliminary report of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra). The regulator has decided to punish them with huge financial penalties.
According to documents available with The News, the regulator has completed its preliminary probe revealing that 10 oil marketing companies have committed flagrant violations of the rules as per the licenses issued to them. As per Pakistan’s petroleum rules, the OMCs are also bound to maintain their stocks.
Pakistan State Oil, Shell, Chevron, Bakri, Admore, Askar, Attock Petroleum, Overseas Pakistan and Byco Petroleum Limited have been found committing violations of the Pakistan petroleum rules as they were not maintaining stocks. Ogra on January 15 wrote letters to all the OMCs seeking information of their stocks till January 20, but the regulator was not provided with the required information, though the OMCs are bound to provide it to the regulator. This forced Ogra to issue on January 20 the show cause notices to the OMCs asking for the information by January 23.
According to officials, the OMCs did not maintain the petrol stock to avert inventory losses in the wake of the rapid decrease in the price of POL products.
The refineries also did not refine POL products to save losses in the wake of the incessant decrease in prices of petroleum products in the international market. It may not be out of place to mention here that the same OMCs and refineries have been pocketing billions of rupees for the last seven years when the price of petroleum products in the international marker stayed at high levels.