Attock Refinery temporarily shuts main crude facility amid crude unavailability

Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), a key player in Pakistan’s downstream petroleum sector, has temporarily shut down its main crude distillation unit amid low crude oil availability.

The listed refinery shared the development in a Tuesday notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

“We wish to inform you that ARL has shut down its main crude distillation unit (32,400 BPSD [barrels per stream day] capacity) due to very low crude stocks,” read the notice.

The distillation unit will remain shut till June 01, 2025.

The refinery shared that the shutdown is due to insufficient crude oil availability from local oilfields, which has disrupted the refinery’s operations.

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“Owing to imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), there has been persistent high SNGPL system pressure, resulting in forced curtailment of gas production from local oilfields. This has also resulted in a reduction of crude oil production and supplies to ARL from the oilfields,” the company stated.

At the time of filing this report, the share price of ARL was hovering at Rs664, a loss of Rs4.49 or 0.67%.

Attock Refinery was incorporated in Pakistan on November 8, 1978, as a private limited company and was converted into a public company on June 26, 1979. It is principally engaged in the refining of crude oil.

The company is a subsidiary of the Attock Oil Company Limited, England, and its ultimate parent is Coral Holding Limited (a private limited company incorporated in Malta).