Attock refinery resumes operations of two plants after OGRA intervention

ISLAMABAD: Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) has restarted its two crude distillation plants that were shut earlier this month due to low demand for its products, its managing director said on Wednesday.

The plants, which process local crude oil from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Potohar regions, were closed on Dec. 11 as the refinery faced a glut of petrol and diesel stocks amid reduced off-take by oil marketing companies (OMCs).

“After intervention by OGRA (Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority), the off-taking by OMCs has improved and ARL management has made its two distillation plants operational,” Adil Khattak told The News.

He said the OGRA chairman and oil member would visit the refinery on Thursday and receive a briefing on its operations.

In the wake of the closure of its two plants, the refinery’s throughput was earlier lowered to 60 per cent because of the increasing stocks of MS and HSD. Now the OMCs have picked up the pace for the upliftment of its finished products, owing to which the management has decided to end the closure of its two plants.

The Attock refinery refines the local crude oil from KPK and the Potohar region. Its management has time and again asked the petroleum division to allocate 5000 barrels per day of condensate crude oil from fields in Sindh, which is currently being exported at a loss. If the government managed to provide 5000 BPD condensate, ARL would not only increase its throughput but also increase the production of more petrol and diesel. The ECC approved the provision of 5000 BPD condensate to ARL, but the decision is not being implemented.

Khattak responded to this particular issue by saying that the local crude production from KPK and Potohar region has reduced and the provision of 5000 barrels per day of condensate would help increase the throughput of the refinery. ARL’s higher throughput would save precious foreign exchange by reducing the import of petrol and diesel.

The condensate is not processed by other refineries because of a lack of required technologies, and it is ARL that can process every kind of crude, including the condensate. The Attock refinery, located in Rawalpindi, processes 100 percent local indigenous crude oil. Due to falling output from the oil fields in the KPK and Potohar regions, ARL currently operates at 77-88 percent capacity. If the 5000 BPD condensate is provided, then the refinery’s output would increase.