Pakistan State Oil Company Limited (PSO) has clarified a news item published in Daily Business Recorder on August 22, 2008 under the caption "IPPs threaten to shut down plants or call GoP guarantees".
In a press release issued here on Friday, PSO said that it was mentioned in the news item that "All the remittances from Discos between August 15 and 23 will be transferred to Hubco, Kapco, AES Lalpir and Gencos for further payment to PSO solely, subsequently PSO assured that they would immediately restore furnace oil supplies to these plants."
PSO clarified that it has supplied substantial volumes to the above mentioned companies during the month of August. Following are the quantities of furnace oil along with their value which have been supplied to different companies upto August 21, 2008.
CORRESPONDINGLY THE REMITTANCES MADE DURING THE SAME PERIOD ARE ALSO GIVEN: From the above table, it is clearly evident that PSO despite shouldering a huge financial burden due to non-payment of outstanding dues, which to date have been accumulated to Rs.11.4 billion and Rs.18.6 billion against Pepco and Hubco, is maintaining the supplies to the above customers.
"We would also like to place on record that regarding the availability of funds of Rs.240 million & Rs.420 million to IPPs & Gencos respectively, PSO is supplying the product to IPPs whereas only Rs.247 million have been funded to Gencos, which are still to be realised by PSO," the press release said. PSO has always supplied committed volumes but additional quantities that Gencos are requesting cannot be furnished due to severe liquidity crunch in the supply chain mechanism.
The current position of total outstanding dues from Hubco and Pepco has reached an alarming level of Rs30 billion. In this cash crunch situation PSO has managed to sustain the supplies uptill now to avoid any disastrous blackout situation in the country. However non-payment of outstanding dues from the power plants and IPPs is not helping the situation, as it is becoming more difficult for PSO to make arrangements for future product supplies, the press release concluded.

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                                   Rs. In billion
        Quantity                 Value     Payment
                             of Supplies
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Kapco     36000 MTs            Rs.2.57     Rs.1.54
Pepco     36000 MTs            Rs.2.31     Rs.0.24
Hubco     97000 MTs            Rs.6.43     Rs.1.79
AES       39000 MTs            Rs.2.52     Rs.2.55
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Total:                        Rs.13.83     Rs.6.14
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