Penalised OMCs file appeal with Ogra

The seven oil marketing companies (OMCs), which were restricted from market operations and fined Rs 21 million by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) on September 6, have filed an appeal with the Registrar of the Authority, requesting restoration of their marketing activities.
Ogra on September 6 had provisionally suspended the marketing activities of seven OMCs on account of not constructing/maintaining the mandatory oil storage/stocks of petroleum products in the country. The companies were also penalised with penalties of Rs 3.0 million each. These companies are Askar, Hascol, Admore, OOTC, Bakri, Byco, and Total. Five out of seven marketing companies were partially restricted from marketing activities, while Askar and Hascol were directed to completely stop their operations.
Sources said that the Registrar of the Authority would put the OMCs'' appeal before the Authority in the next few days, and added that these seven OMCs have total 1100 petrol stations in the country, and have started building storage facilities now.
The Oil and Gas Regularity Authority (Ogra) on June 16 had issued show-cause notices to these oil marketing companies for not maintaining requisite stocks as advised by DG Oil. In June, a sudden fuel crisis across the country was a result of such negligence on the part of some of the OMCs, which compelled the government to import over 190,000 million tons of petrol to overcome the crisis.
According to sources in Ogra, the Authority has, time and again, warned the marketing companies, but OMCs were showing laxity as most of them have not constructed the required storage facilities and adopted other measures to cope with the fuel shortages, which reached peak in June and created serious fuel crisis in the country.
Sources alleged that instead of abiding by the licence rules, the OMCs were strengthening existing cartels and creating newer ones to thwart any government attempt to force them into compliance. "We have also noted that in the past there were some oil marketing companies that were given licences to operate, without binding them to follow the rules and regulations of Ogra, but now we will compel all the OMCs to follow the rules otherwise they would not be allowed to operate", sources added.
They said that the government could not take strict measures against OMCs which had already invested hefty amount in oil market of Pakistan in spite of ever soaring circular debt and also underlined 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 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 sudden shortage of petrol would not be created if they had sufficient stocks.