To meet power shortage, PSO imports increased furnace oil

This will help meet energy needs, especially during Ramazan

KARACHI: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has announced that the company, through higher imports, has ensured increased supply of furnace oil to the power plants in order to help reduce electricity outages during the current summer season, particularly in Ramazan.

“PSO has made arrangements to meet higher demand for furnace oil from the power sector,” a company spokesperson told The Express Tribune.

“We have placed orders for the import of eight to nine vessels; each of which will bring 65,000 tons of fuel oil from May-end to July. Some of them have arrived and others are on their way that will reach in June,” she said.



Brushing aside financial constraints, the spokesperson said PSO would supply 23,000 tons of furnace oil every day to the power plants throughout the summer season.



“This is the total requirement of power plants (from PSO) for the summer,” she said in response to a query. “Earlier in March and April, oil demand from the power sector stood at 18,000 tons per day.”

In a press release, PSO said it was trying its best to maintain furnace oil supplies on a continuous basis to the power plants despite the fact that they owed the oil marketing company Rs201 billion.

“Keeping in view the national interest, PSO is supplying furnace oil without any interruption to the power sector in an effort to reduce load-shedding hours to ease public hardship during the hot weather and upcoming holy month of Ramazan,” it said.

During this summer, PSO is supplying approximately 18,000 tons of furnace oil per day to its credit customers, including the Water and Power Development Authority, Hub Power Company and Kot Addu Power Company.

Making money in the oil business not that slippery

To cash customers including Lalpir, Koh-e-Noor, Pak Gen, K-Electric and Gul Ahmed, the company is supplying daily an estimated 5,000 tons of fuel oil.

According to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, Pakistan produced about 30% of electricity from oil-based plants that totalled 6,735.20 gigawatt-hours in March 2016.

The other two big sources of power generation were hydroelectric power and gas-based plants that cumulatively produced about 60% of the total, according to the regulatory authority.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2016.

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