A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday revealed thatno progress on the investment of $8 billion from Saudi Arabia in Pakistan.
The investment could not be made due to the lack of oil refinery policy.Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman had announced investment in oil refineryduring his to Pakistan.
Additional Secretary Petroleum said that Saudi Arabia was to establish anoil refinery in Hub and Gwadar area of Balochistan, the draft of therefinery policy was prepared last month but it still require two moremonths. He said it took more than a year to prepare the policy.
Chairman OGRA said that the last oil refinery was established in 2002 andthe refinery policy is old. Petroleum division officials said that due tothe lack of capacity of the oil refinery, 70 percent of the petrol anddiesel are imported and only 30 percent of the finished products are beingobtained from the refineries.
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The additional secretary Petroleum said that crude oil is only availablefrom Saudi Arabia on deferred payments, while petrol and diesel are notavailable from Saudi Arabia on deferred payments. He said that due to oldagreements, India can buy 100% cheap oil from Russia, but no agreement hasbeen reached between Pakistan and Russia to buy cheap oil.
