Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the Gulf Company "Almotahedoon Petroleum Refinery" have agreed to establish Oil Refinery at Khushal Garh area of district Kohat for which the provincial government will acquire the required land with the condition that "Almotahedoon" being private company will pay 25% charges instead of 15% for the land acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act. A formal agreement on this account will be signed later.
This was decided in a meeting of the provincial government and official of the foreign company held at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House, Islamabad with the Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair.
The Advisor to the Chief Minister for Communication and Works, Akbar Ayub Khan, Chairman of Almotahedoon Muhammad Ahmed Alkaitoob Al Naeemi, the Provincial Secretary Interior, Senior Member Board of Revenue, the Chief Economist, and Commissioner Kohat Division attended the meeting.
The company expressed its willingness to fulfil the pre-conditions presented by the Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for acquiring land for the refinery and agreed to prefer local population in employment opportunities for the proposed refinery and local level consumption of Liquid Petroleum Gas will be allowed for them which will be covered by legislation or a formal agreement.
It also ensured to take over one Technical Education Institute of the area and also to commence execution of the project soon after the land acquisition. The chief Minister on this occasion welcomed the project and directed the provincial revenue authorities to draft the land agreement in light of the conditions agreed upon by the both parties.
The company told that it had obtained the Hydrocarbon quota from the federal government and presented documents of the quota so acquired to the Chief Minister.
It is worth mentioning that allocation of the quota by the federal government was one of the pre-conditions of the KP government for permitting any company to install oil refinery in southern districts of the province and the provincial government had rejected many proposals, presented by many companies, for the reason that they had failed to obtain quota from the federal government under the laws.