The petroleum ministry has held the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) responsible for the recent fuel crisis in the country.
In a report submitted to the petroleum minister, the office of director-general for oil said that Ogra failed to perform its duty as a regulator as it did not take timely action to head off a crisis. Ogra’s ineffectiveness resulted in black marketing of petrol and diesel in many parts of the country.
Sources in the ministry said Ogra was supposed to take steps to ensure availability of petrol across the country not only by taking measures against hoarders and black marketers but also through timely imports to meet the shortage created by the shutdown of Parco due to floods.
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Government, OGRA, Oil, Pakistan, Petrol
oil, Pakistan, Petroleum, Shortage
Earlier this week we heard of PSO warning the government of the upcoming power crisis if the case of circular debts is taken up. It is now learned that PSO gets enough founds to keep supplies on to the IPPs. Express Tribune report gives the details.
The finance ministry has released Rs12 billion on an urgent basis to Pakistan State Oil (PSO) in order to help the public-sector oil marketing company avoid default. The release comes a day after the PSO management suspended supplies of furnace oil to independent power providers Hub Power Company (Hubco) and Kot Addu Power Company (Kapco).
“The finance ministry released a payment of Rs12 billion to PSO today (Saturday) and has also given assurances that another Rs24 billion will be paid to the company by Tuesday, September 21,” the PSO spokesperson told The Express Tribune. “In light of the release and commitments, we are resuming supplies to Hubco and Kapco.”
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Fuel, Government, PSO, power
Fuel, oil, power, PSO
The controversy over appointment of Adnan Khwaja as MD, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC), is setteled after appointment of Director General (DG) Petroleum Concession Naeem Malik as new MD of the company. Details via Business Recorder
Naeem is a seasoned official with wide experience of dealing issues relating to oil and gas sectors. He has also worked as DG Gas and DG Oil in Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources. During the short span of working as DG PC, he had settled issues of oil and gas exploration and granted record exploration licences to companies in the oil and gas sectors.
After retirement of Mahboob Shah Alam, Naeem was given acting charge of OGDC MD. Adnan Khwaja’s appointment as OGDC MD had sparked controversy. However, he resigned from this post on Thursday. The Supreme Court had also taken suo motu notice of his appointment.
Government, OGDC
Development, gas, oil, Pakistan
The case of unsolved circular debts will lead to major oil crises says Parco and PSO. This is a long pending issue and government should now step up to play its role in resolving before it becomes the reason of further loss to the economy. The business recorder news item gives the details.
The country’s oil sector’s largest giants, Pak Arab Refinery Limited (Parco) and Pakistan State Oil (PSO), have warned the government of an imminent massive oil crisis due to the unresolved circular debt problem and have urged it to arrange funds for import of petroleum products, Business Recorder has learnt reliably.
Parco has urged the government to arrange funds via PSO to save it from default on account of Letter of Credits (L/Cs) for the import of crude oil. Parco revealed that its bank borrowing was rising due to non-payment of dues by PSO with Rs 145.4 billion receivables against different clients on Thursday morning.
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Oil, PSO, Pakistan, WAPDA
oil, Pakistan, PARCO, PSO
When we have clear trade embargoes for no trade with Israel. This comes as an astonishment that how can the state oil company PSO go about a deal with an Israel based company. The excerpt from Dawn has more detail:
The Pakistan State Oil, a government-run oil company, has awarded a contact to an Israeli-based firm, Turpak-Orpak, despite the government’s ban on any kind of trade or agreement with an Israeli entity.
The matter was taken up by the Senate Standing Committee on Interior at its meeting on Monday.
The committee did not only deal with the matter of awarding a contract to any Israeli firm but also expressed doubts over the operation of the company close to sensitive installations in the country.
“It is an Israeli military establishment-funded company which is being headed by a military general,” committee’s Chairman Senator Talha Mehmood told Dawn.
“We have learnt that the company had installed its equipment close to sensitive installations and, therefore, I have ordered an inspection of the equipment to ascertain whether they are being used for monitoring purpose,” the senator said.
Mr Talha said that under SRO 76 (1) issued on Sept 2009, no Israeli company could operate in the country, but the PSO management awarded the contract to the firm in 2008.
PSO officials who attended the meeting said the contract had been awarded by the previous management and they had nothing to do with it.
Read more: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-pso-grants-contract-to-israeli-firm-080-hh-10
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PSO, Pakistan
Israel, oil, Pakistan, PSO, Trade
Crosspost from TelecomPK
Of the various uses of mobile technology, one interesting use of the technology for Gas or Oil Pipeline Operators is for Remote Cathodic Protection (CP) Monitoring.
The traditional way used to monitor CP is the manual measurement of potential risks by a dedicated team of field engineers and technicians. This required an operator to physically go out to the field and collect readings on a quarterly basis. Records showed that, a pipeline of 128 miles could take up-to three weeks to complete. Not to forget the labor, time and cost involved in this effort.
Now, using the GSM technology a complete M2M turn-key solution can be provided for web-based wireless remote monitoring systems for the oil, gas, irrigation, water/wastewater, and similar industries. The technology gives a reliable solution for data acquisition with low-cost telemetry, well-packaged hardware and easy-to-grasp web-based data presentation.
The flow diagram below shows how it really works.
This is one way mobile technology is used in the oil and gas industry. I believe more of such viable solutions can be made to help the agricultural sector.
Gas, Oil, Technology
cathodic, gas, GSM, mobile, oil, pipeline, protection
The state oil company, PSO already in litigation along with Petrosin over the auto-gas deal, it has now being disclosed by the company MD that a power group is involved in supply scams involving selling of cheap oil ahead of monthly price adjustments.
Here is an excerpt that appeared in Dawn News today.
A fresh scam in the oil supply chain surfaced on Thursday when the management of state-run Pakistan State Oil (PSO) officially confirmed that a powerful group in the company was involved in selling cheap oil to influential dealers ahead of monthly price adjustments to enable them to charge higher rates from consumers.
As the managing director of the country’s largest oil supplier, Mr Irfan Qureshi, broke the news before the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources, the committee’s chairman, Shaikh Waqas Akram, demanded an inquiry and its report within a week to identify officials involved in manipulating the supply chain to the benefit of dealers.
Mr Qureshi told the committee that PSO officials were found providing petroleum products to dealers on credit at the end of each month in anticipation of an increase in prices to earn a windfall at the cost of PSO. He said two officials had been held accountable for being involved in the malpractices and an inquiry had been in progress since April.
He said the practice had been going on for years and had now been brought to an end. He said six officials at the Lalpir depot had been suspended for embezzling Rs100 million. He said whenever the PSO took action against corrupt officials, courts reinstated them.
Read more: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/powerful-group-in-pso-involved-in-supply-scams-370
Fuel, Infrastructure, Oil, PSO, Pakistan
oil, prices, PSO, scam, supply
