Ogra fines 6 OMCs

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has imposed fine worth Rs 6.1 million on six Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), which failed to keep 20-days fuel stock. Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhary, Secretary Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources revealed this while talking to a group of journalists here on Tuesday.
Giving the details of the Oil Marketing Companies, which were fined, he said that an amount of Rs 2 million as a fine has been imposed on Admore, Rs 1.5 million on Oscar, Rs 1 million on Byco, Rs 0.5 million on OTC, Rs 0.3 million on Pak-Re and Rs 0.8 million on Hascol.
The Secretary said that these six OMCs failed in maintaining a storage capacity of twenty days. The ministry has directed the companies to provide the details of all the filling stations across the country to Ogra, in case of failure stern action would be taken against the OMCs, he maintained. He said, "If any company is not following the prescribed rules and regulations the government would not allow it to operate in the country." The Ogra on June 16 issued show cause notices to the OMCs for not maintaining requisite stocks as advised by DG Oil.
In June a sudden fuel crisis engulfed the country due to the negligence of some of the OMCs, which compelled the government to import over 190,000 million tons of petrol to overcome the crisis.
"The ministry has directed all the six OMCs to complete the construction of storage facilities within six months otherwise their license would be cancelled, as Ogra was advised accordingly," he added. According to sources in Ogra, the authority has time and again warned the marketing companies, but OMCs are showing laxity as most of them have not constructed the required storage facilities and adoption of other appropriate measures to cope with the fuel shortages, which led to serious fuel crisis in the country in June.
Sources alleged that instead of abiding by the license rules, the OMCs are strengthening existing cartels and creating newer ones to thwart any government attempt to force them into compliance with. In June a sudden fuel crisis were erupted across the country, OMCs inaction and stubbornness also added fuel to fire, while it is an undeniable fact that non-maintenance of prescribed 14 to 20 days build-up fuel stocks by many OMCs has played the main role in worsening the petroleum situation in the country.
But the OMC's were not to blame alone as leniency on the part of regulatory and monitoring authorities, which often succumb to arm-twisting by the cartels also share a big part of the responsibility of putting the country in an utter fuel chaos. "We have also found out that in the past there were some oil marketing companies that were given licenses to operate, without binding them to follow the rules and regulations of Ogra", sources said, adding, "Any crisis or emergency ever appeared would again mock the nation in spite of bundle of measures and policy guidelines introduced by the concerned authorities till this effect to end the emergency like situations has been proved as a wild goose chase.
Sources were of the view that the government could not take strict measures against OMCs, which had already invested their hefty amount in oil market of Pakistan in spite of ever soaring circular debt issue also underline the helplessness of the incumbent government despite having certain paraphernalia to smoothly regulate and strictly monitor the demand, supply and pricing of POL products.
It is relevant to mention that Pakistan's daily consumption of petrol stood at around 6,667 tons per day. Though OMCs are bound to maintain certain quantities of petroleum products in reserve yet the sudden shortage of petrol would not have happened if they had sufficient stocks. Further, marketing companies had stopped lifting petrol from Parco, reportedly because of over charging.