Attock Refinery Limited, a subsidiary of Attock Oil Company Limited, on Wednesday, announced that it will curtail its operations on a temporary basis, amid low intake of High-Speed Diesel (HSD) by Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).

The refinery shared the development in a notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

“We wish to inform you that HSD upliftment by OMCs from ARL has remained low during the last two months due to multiple reasons including the possible inflow of smuggled product in our supply envelope,” ARL said in a notice.

The development comes as petroleum product sales in Pakistan plunged by 46% in April, clocking in at 1.17 million tons. Volume of HSD declined by 50% YoY, settling at 0.46 million in April 2023. Experts attributed the decline to a higher petroleum prices, economic slowdown, an increase in smuggled petroleum products from Iran.

Meanwhile, the oil refinery informed that at present, HSD stocks in the refinery have reached to a high-level with very little or no ullage in storage tanks.

“Consequently, we are left with no option except to go for shut down of our main distillation unit of 32,400 barrels per day (bpd) to manage the critically high HSD stocks and carry out essential maintenance including that of allied downstream units for a period of five (5) days,” read the notice.

Attock Refinery restarts operations at main distillation unit

The company, which has become the second major refinery in the country, informed it will partially operate at around 25% capacity during the said period.

“However, adequate inventories of products are available to meet the current requirements. This has been intimated to the Ministry of Energy (Petroleum Division) and Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) accordingly,” read the notice.