ISLAMABAD – The government is planning to upgrade Pakistan Refinery Limited(PRL) with an estimated cost of $ 1 billion aims at achievingself-sufficiency in the refining sector and bringing down the oil importbill.
“We have offered the Chinese government to participate in the PRLup-gradation project, and Chinese companies are interested in it,” officialsources told APP.
At present, they said, around 55 percent needs of diesel and petrol werebeing met through the import of petroleum products in finished form, while40 to 45 percent requirements were fulfilled by refining the crude oil atdomestic facilities.
The sources said the government was encouraging establishment of new oilrefineries and modernizing the existing facilities to meet the countryneeds indigenously.
Replying to a question, they said the government was working on amulti-faceted strategy to achieve self-sufficiency in the crude oilrefining sector. “Currently, as many as six projects, investmentinitiatives and proposals in oil refining sector are in pipeline and atdifferent stages to purify around 1.110 million Barrel per Day (BPD) oil.”
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Sharing details, the sources said under the strategy an oil refinery andpetrochemical complex of 300,000 BPD oil capacity would be set up atGwadar, Balochistan; PARCO would install 250,000 BPD Coastal Refinery atHub, Balochistan; SINO Infrastructure Hong Kong Oriental Times CorporationLtd (SIOT) would establish 250,000 BPD Gwadar Refining & Industrial Park,Upcountry Deep Conversion Refinery and Crude Pipeline of 250,000-300,000BPD oil would be set up in collaboration with Pakistan State Oil and PowerChina International Group, Falcon Oil Private Limited to set up 40,000 BPDoil refining facility at Dera Ismail Khan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa KhyberRefinery Limited would establish the facility to purify 20,000 BPD oil inKohat.
Answering a question, they said at present eight oil refineries includingPakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), National Refinery Limited (NRL), Pak¬ArabRefinery Limited (PARCO), Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), Byco PetroleumPakistan Limited (BPPL¬I), Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited (BPPL¬II), EnarPetroleum Refining Facility (ENAR¬I) and Enar Petroleum Refining Facility(ENAR-II) were operating in the country.
