The Pakistan Oil Marketing Association claimed that the primary obstacle in starting new oil outlets is the trade of petrol and diesel, adding that the government is losing Rs250 billion every year as a result of the threat of smuggling alone.
The Oil Marketing Association of paquistan, a group of minor oil marketing enterprises, reacted to the government carrying out a further audit for the downstream oil sector by saying:”A further audit was launched by the DG Audit at the General Oil Directorate. Some noteworthy information are presented by a review of the letter to the 25 petroleum companies informed on their audit: Only two out of the six refineries in Pakistan, while 60 percent of those with single market shares of less than 0.5 percent are the 23 oil-marketing companies, claimed the OMCs.
This is another in a series of downstream oil industry audits since mid-2020.
All data for the conduct of the forensical audit aimed at the stated Inquiry Commission were freely submitted for the report drawn up by a senior officer of the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA).
“We acknowledge that this is a severe issue with regard to smuggling. For more than a decade, the trafficking of petrol and HSD in a nearby country was a festering problem. This is not only due to sale of poor quality product or product which not only fails to meet Pakistani market quality requirements (the value of petrol octane is far below the specified minimum 90 RON for our market and is in fact 60-70, RON’s naphtha), but also to price that is far below the relevant market price and therefore the smuggling industry is proliferating.”
