PSO reduces oil supply to thermal power houses

ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has reduced furnace oil supply from 33,000 tons to 8,000 tons per day to thermal power houses, an official of the company told Business Recorder here on Monday.

PSO's total receivables from the power sector and other sectors, including Pakistan Railways and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has reached an all time high of Rs 217.4 billion against Rs 179.36 billion payable to local and international fuel suppliers.

"We time and again have requested the government to release Rs 50-100 billion to the company to enable it to payback outstanding dues of local refineries as they have stopped supplying fuel to PSO" sources further revealed.

With the start of summer PSO's liabilities against power sector is increasing with each passing day.

PSO is supplying furnace oil worth Rs 32 billion to the power sector per month, while it receives roughly around Rs 12 billion per month due to which PSO's outstanding dues are continually increasing.

The Hub Power Company Limited (HUBCO) is the leading defaulter of PSO with Rs 104.058 billion outstanding dues followed by Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) with Rs 55.071 billion, and Kot Addu Power Company (KAPCO) with Rs 29.5 billion outstanding dues. PSO is to receive Rs 2.975 billion from Pakistan International Airline (PIA), Rs 434 million from Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), Rs 7.25 billion from Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Rs 539 million from National Logistic Cell (NLC) and Rs 1.405 billion from Pakistan Railways.

The company is to receive Rs 1.4 billion on account of audited price differential claim of High Speed Diesel (HSD), over Rs 3.407 billion on account of price differential on Low Sulphur Fuel Oil & High Sulphur Fuel Oil (LSFO/HSFO), Rs 1.36 billion on account of price differential on imported PMG and Rs 8.612 billion price differential under GLMP and Rs 1.419 billion on account of financial charges on PIA.

During last one week the company has paid back Rs 5 billion to local refineries, out of a total of Rs 90.85 billion. PSO owes Rs 85.75 billion to local refineries out of which Rs 27.42 billion is due to Pak Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO), Rs 15.64 billion to Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), Rs 9.29 billion to National Refinery Limited (NRL), Rs 30.6 billion to ARL, Rs 2.6 billion to Bosicor and Rs 273 million to others.

The national fuel supplying company has to payback Rs 93.6 to Kuwait Petroleum Company Limited and other international fuel suppliers on account of Letter of Credit (LoC) payments. PSO's total payable to local and international fuel suppliers stands at Rs 179.36 billion out of which Rs 82.27 billion is overdue.