New oil terminals built at Keamari despite ban

Ministry discloses this in summary sent to National Security Council

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources has revealed that two terminals have been built at the Keamari oil installation area despite a ban imposed due to security concerns.

The ministry made the disclosure in a summary sent to the National Security Council that sought the easing of restrictions on constructing oil storages at Keamari.



In a bid to ensure energy security, state-run oil marketing giant Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is asking the government to allow the building of more oil storage tanks and a pipeline to connect Karachi Port and Port Bin Qasim in order to strengthen the supply of petroleum products. These oil tanks will have the capacity to store 34,100 tons.

A PSO official told The Express Tribune that the company informed the petroleum ministry that despite the ban on construction of all types of petroleum and non-petroleum storage tanks at Keamari, two new terminals were built namely ZY Terminal and Al Noor Terminal.

Earlier, the petroleum ministry had approached the Ministry of Defence for obtaining a no-objection certificate for constructing new oil tanks. However, the defence ministry declined to entertain the request and asked the petroleum ministry to seek exemption from the National Security Council or the cabinet.

The previous government of Pakistan Peoples Party had decided to shift all oil installations from Keamari and Karachi Port to the Khalifa Point at Hub, Balochistan due to security concerns. It took the decision and imposed the ban after receiving reports of security threats to the oil installations in Karachi.

The PSO official said the company had already taken permission of the Explosives Department and the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.



He insisted that the economy and energy security of Pakistan depended heavily on regular and sustainable supplies of imported fuel. At present, the demand for petroleum products in the country stands at over 23 million tons per annum and it is expected to reach 27 million tons in 2020.

Of the total demand, 10 million tons, or 44%, are produced by domestic refineries and the remaining 13 million tons (56%) are imported.

Similarly, more than two-thirds of the crude processed by the refineries comes through imports. In financial year 2015, of the total crude processed by the refineries, around 3.9 million tons (32%) were produced locally whereas 8.2 million tons (68%) were imported.

Being the largest oil marketing company, PSO meets consumer needs through a widespread network of depots with a storage capacity of around one million tons, which is around two-thirds of the storage capacity of all oil marketing companies.

PSO imports 10 million tons (over 75%) of petroleum products out of total imports of 13.2 million tons into the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2016.

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