ISLAMABAD – Federal government has notified an immediate ban on import offurnace oil and ordered local refineries to decrease the production offurnace oil (FO) to a bare minimum, reports *Dawn.*
According to a notification issued by the Ministry of Energy (MoE), thegovernment has directed refineries to sign commercial agreements with powerproducers for using their capacity for furnace oil storage.
MoE directed in future all refineries ensure furnace oil production is aminimal byproduct of crude oil processing.
It stated the oil refineries handle production of additional storagefacilities and use the collected proceeds from ‘deemed duty’ for themodernization and improvement of their facilities.
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The domestic refineries product around 30% furnace oil of their overallcapacity utilization. In the past few years, to facilitate liquefiednatural gas (LNG) imports for cheaper electricity production, thegovernment has been planning to phase out furnace oil.
Additionally, the notification said an immediate ban on import of furnaceoil has been enforced starting 2nd January except for K-Electric.