Protest against power blackouts causes petrol shortage

Traffic congestion disrupts oil supply to filling stations across the country

KARACHI: Though the days-long blackout and the resultant protest sit-in on the Native Jetty Bridge by residents of Baba and Bhit Islands ended with the partial restoration of power supply on Tuesday evening, it caused shortage of petroleum products at filling stations in some parts of the country for at least a day.

“I went through three petrol pumps in a short span of 20 minutes to buy petrol in the vicinity of Clifton,” a consumer told The Express Tribune while expressing the difficulty he faced in finding the fuel on Wednesday.



The first two pumps had literally gone dry and he had to stand in a queue at the third filling station.

A spokesperson for Shell Pakistan, a major oil marketing company, said the supply of petroleum products to fuel stations got stuck for several hours because of traffic congestion on roads in the wake of the protest.

She dismissed the claim of petrol pump operators that they had not been provided fuel for the past two to three days. “We have ample quantity of petroleum products as per the regulatory requirement…the petrol pumps could not get supplies in time due to the protest,” she said. “They will receive the oil in the next few hours as the supplies are on their way.”

She said consumers usually get panicked in such a situation, rush to petrol pumps and demand more than their needs.

Wakil Khan, an office-bearer of the All Pakistan Oil Tanker Owners Association, confirmed that oil supplies from Karachi to the upcountry had come to a halt for hours.



“Almost all the oil tankers, which transport petrol from Karachi to other parts of the country, remained stuck in the traffic jam yesterday [Tuesday],” he said.

About 300 to 400 oil tankers leave Karachi every day for upper parts of the country with each carrying 40 to 60 tons of fuel.

State-run Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the largest oil marketing firm with more than 50% market share, placed orders for additional volumes of oil from world markets last week.

It is buying higher volumes in a bid to ensure uninterrupted oil supply, particularly to oil-based power plants, to avert the repeat of power crisis that erupted in the middle of peak summer last year.

The state-owned oil marketing company and other players in the industry with small market shares had delayed oil imports last year to stave off financial losses.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2016.

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