ISLAMABAD: One of the country’s key refineries, Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), is facing difficult conditions due to excessive imports of petroleum products and insufficient allocation of condensate crude oil.
“ARL is faced with challenges on two fronts. On the one hand, it is being forced to operate at only 65–70 percent of its design capacity due to reduced availability of crude oil from northern fields in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Potohar region. On the other hand, its products—particularly diesel—are not being fully uplifted, as some oil marketing companies (OMCs) prefer to reduce inventories during periods of falling prices or, in certain cases, supply imported products in ARL’s supply area while managing to have transportation freight reimbursed from the Inland Freight Equalization Margin (IFEM) pool,” said ARL Chief Executive Officer Adil Khattak.
Despite repeated protests by refineries, Khattak said, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) continues to allow excessive imports instead of prioritizing upliftment from local refineries, as mandated under the Petroleum Rules. He added that OGRA also permits freight reimbursement from the IFEM pool even when products are readily available from ARL.
Regarding the reduced availability of crude oil from northern fields, ARL has been requesting the Petroleum Division for more than three years to allocate 5,000 barrels per day of condensate crude oil from southern fields. This crude is currently being exported, as no other refinery is willing to accept it. However, approval of ARL’s request has been repeatedly delayed on one pretext or another.
The inability to secure southern crude supplies is directly restricting ARL’s throughput, thereby limiting the overall availability of petroleum products to OMCs and the armed forces—both of which are critical to national energy security and the maintenance of balanced national freight economics.
As demonstrated through detailed calculations, the cost of transporting finished petroleum products is nearly double that of transporting crude oil. Consequently, the prolonged delay over the past three years in approving ARL’s southern crude allocation has resulted in substantial additional costs to end consumers, along with avoidable foreign exchange expenditure on imported finished products, Khattak continued.
The company has also notified the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) that due to low crude stocks and reduced upliftment of motor gasoline (PMG) and high-speed diesel (HSD) by OMCs during December 2025—leading to high product inventories at the refinery—ARL will shut down its main crude distillation unit (HBU-I) with a capacity of 32,400 barrels per stream day (BPSD) for three to four days starting January 4, 2026. During the shutdown, essential maintenance activities will be carried out.
ARL stated that other crude units will remain operational during this period, along with normal operations of downstream process units. Committed volumes and uninterrupted dispatches for the current month will be ensured during the shutdown.
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