According to a report published in Pakistan’s leading English
newspaper Dawn dawn.com, motor gasoline production by local refineries will
increase by 600,000 tons next year that will help the country save US$60 million
per annum. Three of the local refineries would produce motor gasoline from naphtha,
at present around 800,000 tons naphtha is being exported every year. This has
become possible due to these refineries investing around US$200 to upgrade
their facilities.
These three refineries namely, Attock Refinery, National Refinery
and Pakistan Refinery are installing isomerisation units which are expected to
be completed by the end of next year. Attock Refinery is installing isomerisation
unit of 7,000 barrels per day to produce environmental-friendly gasoline that
will enhance its production by 20,000 tons per month. Monthly motor gasoline
production of Pakistan Refinery will be doubled to 24,000 tons from 12,000 tons.
Monthly production of National Refinery will also increase to 16,000 tons.
Every year in winter motor gasoline consumption increases
due to closure of CNG stations, which erodes paltry foreign exchange reserves
of the country. During 2013-14, around 58 per cent of petrol demand was met
through import. Total sales of motor gasoline in 2013-14 was 3.8 million tons
in which local refinery produced 1.6 million tons while remaining quantity of 2.19
million tons has to be imported. During 2012-13 country has imported 1.89 million
tons while refineries produced about 1.4 million tons and total sale was 3.3
million tons.
According to the report record 267,763 tons of motor
gasoline was imported in April and this record was broken with import of
273,681 tons during September. Earlier, the highest monthly import record of
was 233,348 tons registered in Nov 2013. The import of was just 127,000 tons in 2007-08, rising to
249,177 tons in 2008-09; taking a quantum jump to 625,019 tons in 2009-10,
rising to 1.06 m tons in 2010-11 and 1.55 million tons in 2011-12.
