Second oil shipment from Russia faces one-week delay

KARACHI: The arrival of the second tanker of Russian crude oil carrying 55,000 tonnes to Pakistan has been delayed by one week, The News learnt on Monday.

Expected arrival of the tanker was June 20, 2023. “This tanker will now be arriving by the end of this month,” sources in the shipping sector familiar with the matter revealed.

Talking about the reason for the delay, the sources said that the arrival of the second tanker had to be postponed because of the non-availability of space to discharge this oil to the tank of Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL).

PRL is the first refinery to be supplied Russian crude oil under the deal between Islamabad and Moscow.

“The discharge of the first tanker also took a long time,” the informed, adding that “the crude oil from Saudi Arabia would also be arriving by June 25, 2023.”

Sources said that the PRL tanks do not much capacity to accommodate crude oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and Russia together in a short span of time. The tanker at the Omani port has been informed to delay its departure because of these logistic issues.

“Therefore, the said tanker would arrive in Pakistan by the end of the month,” sources informed.

Pakistan received its first cargo of Russian crude oil on June 12, 2023 when a tanker carrying 45,000 tonnes of crude oil docked at the Karachi port. The government had placed the first order of 100,000 tonnes of Russian crude oil in April this year after months-long parleys between the two countries over the terms and conditions for the deal.

Under this deal, Russia sent the first oil tanker carrying 100,000 metric tonnes of crude, which had arrived at the Omani port early this month. However, the authorities decided that it would be transported to Pakistan through smaller ships as the Pakistani port did not have the capacity to accommodate heavy ships carrying more than 50,000 tonnes liquid cargo.

It is worth noting that the vessel, which was loaded with Ural crude on April 21 at a Russian port, was delayed for 10 days due to technical reasons. “It then arrived at Egypt’s Suez Canal on May 17, where it waited in a long queue for 12 days to cross the canal.”

Pakistan imports 70 percent of its crude oil, which is refined by PRL, National Refinery Limited, Pak Arab Refinery Limited, and Byco Petroleum. The remaining 30 percent is locally produced and refined by local refinery Attock Refinery Limited.