Rising imports of furnace oil: PSO demands to set up link between PQA, Keamari

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has urged the government to immediately establish a link between Port Qasim and Keamari to handle the rising imports of furnace oil earmarked for the power sector. The demand of furnace oil for power sector is expected to increase to 12 million metric tonnes from the current eight million tonnes during the current financial year.
After establishing a link between these two ports, import of high-speed diesel (HSD) will be diverted to Keamari, enabling the Fotco terminals to receive the import of furnace oil. Keamari has the handling capacity of 24 million tonnes per year, estimated at 30 percent of its total capacity.
Furnace oil demand is increasing due to lower availability of gas and hydel power generation. Local production is around three million tonnes per year and, according to the Pepco and IPPs forecast, its demand will surge to 12 million tonnes during the current financial year.
The deficit of HSFO will range between 6.5-7 million tonnes, coupled with 4.5 million-tonne deficit of HSD. Sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday that it would not be possible for the Fotco terminals to handle such huge imports as the demand will continue rising during next 2-3 years due to new IPPs.
In its comments, PSO stated that the unloading capacities of the Fotco terminals are only designed capacities and as such cannot form the basis of tanker discharge rate as no LR vessels, complying with the PQA parameters, are available in the world to achieve the discharge rate as mentioned by the Fotco. Moreover, PSO's Zulfiqarabad oil terminal is located at 14 kilometres from the jetty and at an elevation of 38 metres, which makes the achievement of such handling capacities virtually impossible when the tanker is stripping its tank in the end.
At the PQA, there is no night navigation for LR vessels and due to this reason, the vessels are not berthed/sailed in daylight. In actual practice, on an average, the HSFO vessel is discharged in more than 30 hours and thus sufficient time is not available to sail the vessel and bring another waiting vessel due to tide limitations. Waiting vessel is berthed after 48 hours. In monsoon season, draft is reduced by 0.5 metres approximately, which also reduces fuel oil cargo size 67,000 tonnes.
The sources said that with the commissioning of WOPP and introduction of modern vessels by PSO, it has been possible to off-load 50,000-tonne HSD vessels within one day as compared to two days when the vessel was received at ZOT/ WOP storage. Thus the load on Fotco jetty has reduced considerably, ensuring berthing of around 15 vessels every month.
"As far as reduction in sampling time is concerned, PSO arranges the sampling of fuel oil at the outer anchorage as per items of the contract to ensure quantity/quality. In case, the vessel is tested at discharge port, the discharge of vessel is slightly delayed by 4-5 hours to comply also with the government of Pakistan directives," said the sources.
PSO has a storage capacity of around 275,000 tonnes of furnace oil and 97,000 HSD at ZOT. Apart from this, PAPCO WOTS-1 has capacity of 120,000 tonnes HSD.