Federal government has been successful in pushing marketing companies to boost stocks of petroleum products, which have now gone beyond strategic levels, says a senior government official.
In a meeting held on March 2, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources told the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) that stocks of various petroleum products had averaged 30 days of consumption needs on March 1, which were higher than the mandatory requirement of 20 days
State-run oil marketing leader Pakistan State Oil (PSO) was a major supplier and contributed to maintaining the oil reserves, though its receivables shot up to Rs265 billion.
The Ministry of Defence has been insisting for a long time on taking petroleum stocks to mandatory strategic levels. According to the licensing condition for oil marketing companies, they are bound to keep stocks for at least 20 days of needs.
However, they failed to maintain reserves in line with requirement over the past few years, which sparked concern in the defence ministry.
In January 2015, petrol stocks plunged to sharply lower levels, which led to acute shortage of the motor fuel, particularly in Punjab. Consequently, the government suspended top officials of PSO as well as the petroleum secretary.
Earlier, the ECC, in a meeting held on September 23, 2016 noted that the country had petrol stocks for only nine days of consumption and described them as too low.