A statement here on Tuesday said that it has been in continuous operation since 2012 including the severe monsoon season from June through September, which was previously considered impossible for the area.

Byco's SPM is Pakistan's only floating terminal and revolutionizes the handling crude oil and refined petroleum products in the country, the statement said.

The SPM has been set up in the deep sea and is connected to a storage tank via 15 km of both on-shore and sub-sea pipelines. Byco has a storage capacity of 140,000 metric tons.

Amir Abbassciy, CEO, BPPL, remarked on the achievement: `Byco?s SPM is a national asset for Pakistan. Its continuous safe operations is a testament to our promise of keeping safety our top priority. I want to congratulate the entire Byco team on this singular achievement and on having imported 5 million tons of crude oil since inception'.

The SPM allows Byco to import and export crude oil and refined petroleum products directly, significantly reducing traffic at Pakistan's ports situated in Karachi and Port Qasim.

It enables Byco to be the only vertically integrated petroleum firm in the nation. Byco expects to import 4.5 million tons of crude oil through the SPM in the current fiscal year ending 30 June 2018.