Attock Refinery shuts down main crude unit until June 1,2025 due to supply shortages

ISLAMABAD: The Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) has decided to shut down its main crude distillation unit till June 1, 2025 due to reduction in production and supplies to its oil fields.
According to the information provided to Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE), ARL said that as required under clause No. 5.6.1 of the Rule Book of Pakistan Stock Exchange and sections 96 and 131 of the Securities Act, 2015 read with Notification SRO. No. 143(1)/2012, we wish to inform you that ARL has shut down its main crude distillation unit (32,400 BPSD capacity) due to very low crude stocks. The unit will remain shut till June 01, 2025. Owing to there has been persistent high SNGPL system pressure resulting in forced curtailment of gas production from local oilfields. This has also resulted in reduction of crude oil production and supplies to ARL from the oilfields.
In another letter, to Director General (Oil) ARL stated that as advised earlier crude oil production from the Northern oilfields of the country has reduced significantly, and has reached to a level of around 39,000 BPD forcing ARL to operate its refinery at lower throughput against its installed capacity of 53,400 BPD.
Additionally, ARL is also facing serious challenges in abrupt and frequent curtailment of the local crude
production from the above fields due to forced gas curtailment by SNGPL to accommodate imported LNG.
On top of that, our crude/condensate supplies from certain KPK fields are often disrupted due to frequent strikes/law & order situation.
Owing to the reasons cited above, during the past few months’ crude oil receipts at ARL have been around 33,000 barrels per day resulting in low crude oil stocks. In this scenario, the throughput needs to be maintained lower than current receipts to absorb the daily variations in crude receipts for smooth plant operations and avoid any sudden shutdowns due to unavailability of required volumes of crude oil.
To manage the crude availability, we are often forced to shut down our crude distillation units intermittently to accumulate the crude stocks for maintaining refinery throughput at a reasonable level. For the foregoing reasons, committed and continuous supplies of products becomes an issue as well.
In view of acute shortage of crude oil in our region, it is all the more important that the revised freight rates for already allocated volume of Southern crude oil for processing at ARL is approved on urgent basis, enabling us to operate at optimum capacity. Ends