PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is on the verge of petrol crisis as the province has been put on the running supply of the fuel arriving daily to the depots of Pakistan State Oil (PSO). However, the gas-rich province is still unlikely to face any acute POL crisis as more than 562 compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations continued to provide the fuel to around one million CNG-powered vehicles in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. The stocks of the state-run PSO in the province have been exhausted. However, the officials of the company told The News that millions of litres of petrol and diesel were in the transit and there was no possibility of fuel crisis in the province. It was observed during a survey that a number of filling stations being operated by the PSO and the private companies dried up around midday on Tuesday and some of the motorists, particularly the owners of hybrid and petrol-powered cars in some areas of the provincial metropolis started facing problems in the evening. However, the situation started improving late in the evening as the PSO fuel supplies for the region arrived and was hurriedly distributed by the regional office of the company.The regional manager of the PSO in Peshawar, Jehanzeb Khubaz, and in-charge logistics at the Toru Jaba Depot, Syed Raza Shah along with other staffers personally supervised the supply of the fuel to various filling stations. During a chat with The News at one of the stations that had also dried up around midday, Jehanzeb Khubaz said they had supplied over 0.7 million litres petrol to the filling stations in the region. He said that all 332 filling stations of the company were providing fuel to the consumers. Jehanzeb Khubaz informed that the requirement of Peshawar region had gone up from 0.5 million litres to 0.8 million in recent days. “But we succeeded to avert any crisis in respect of the fuel supply in the region through the best management of our team,” he said. However, he asked the district administration to fulfill its responsibility and check the filling stations selling fuel in the “black-market”.Shahid Shinwari of the Private Oil Dealers Association told The News that the Shell Pakistan dealers continued to receive POL supply for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region from the Chaklala depot of the company. He said that the company dealers received more than three lakh litres petrol on Tuesday and they have been told that supplies for Wednesday had already arrived.All Pakistan CNG Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (APCNGA) Chairman Fazal Muqeem Khan said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was unlikely to face acute POL shortages as the CNG sector is catering to the needs of around one million vehicles in the KP and Hazara regions. He said that 421 CNG stations in KP and 141 in the Hazara region were supplying fuel to the commuters, public and private transports across the province sharing the burden of fuel supply with the POL suppliers in the province. Fazal Muqeem said the situation could even become better if gas supply to about 50 percent of the CNG stations that have been closed down due to low pressure was resumed and improved by the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL).“It will also help avert the imminent POL crisis in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the chairman APCNGA said.
