KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday set aside the order of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) under which it had suspended on Wednesday the marketing activities of seven oil marketing companies (OMCs) for not maintaining the mandatory oil stocks.
The SHC set aside Ogra’s order on the petition of Hascol Petroleum Limited that it had filed on the same day.
Besides suspending the marketing activities, Ogra had imposed a penalty of Rs3 million each on Hascol, Askar, Admore, OOTCL, Bakri, Byco and Total Parco for not maintaining the 20-day mandatory fuel stock.
Ogra’s order, if implemented, would have resulted in suspension of oil supplies to the pumps of these OMCs throughout the country.
OGRA officials said that OMCs did not maintain the required stocks in violation of the rules. They said that their failure to follow the rules could result in the disruption of oil supplies in the country.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Hascol Petroleum’s National Sales Manager (Lubricants) Baqar Alam said that Ogra’s decision to suspend marketing operations of seven OMCs would have been disastrous for the oil business in the country had Hascol not approached the court immediately.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2011.
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It is very easy to say that OMC’s are not willing to make storage tanks – It takes millions of dollars to build a storage tank (depots). Depots are not like building a kitchen in an old home normally it consumes more then a half a decade to build it. Regardless of tanks and storage's Govt have to think that currently there is already a shortfall in supply of petroleum products against the huge demand. A clear policy statement must be issued by Govt. on OGRA and MoP otherwise, it will create lots of ambiguity in the industry. Hascol and SHC have acknowledged the investment of billions in the nation and it will stop GoP to make money through this unethical way.