The Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has paid Rs 5 billion to the oil refineries to enable them to place orders for fresh import of crude oil. Sources told Business Recorder that Finance Ministry had released this amount on the intervention of Petroleum Ministry.
Earlier, Finance Ministry had released Rs 6.35 billion to Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to make payment to PSO through Kapco and Hubco. The Hubco and Kapco paid Rs 3.6 billion to PSO. Sources said that Finance Ministry released Rs 5 billion to PSO under what was owed the company by Hubco and Kapco.
In addition to recent payment, PSO has paid Rs 4.5 billion to oil refineries during last week, they said. After this recent payment, PSO still has to get Rs 75 billion from its clients include Rs 7 billion pending price differential (PDC) owed by the government. In turn, PSO owes Rs 63 to oil refineries, minus the recent payment of Rs 5 billion.
Parco is major oil supplier to PSO and it owes Rs 38 billion to it. Sources noted due to financial constraints followed by circular debt, PSO had awarded tender to import petrol due to lower production by oil refineries. The shipment of 25,000 tons petrol for the current month is expected to arrive in a week to meet the country requirement.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.