Mehar Zohaib Ahmad
Oil shortages have once again affected the nation, mostly as a result of stockpiling and the inability of various enterprises to import the commodity since there are widespread rumours about an expected increase in the pricing of petroleum products. A few days before the planned time for the revision of oil prices, the government increased the price of gasoline and diesel by Rs 35 per litre each, seemingly caving into hoarders rather than taking action against them.Some gas stations have now ceased supplying consumers with fuel because they want to keep the goods and resell them when the price is projected to rise soon. However, certain businesses that had trouble acquiring Letters of Credit (LCs) were unable to import petroleum products and thus were unable to furnish fuel to their retail locations, which resulted in product scarcity.According to sources, the nation has enough supplies of gasoline and diesel to cover the demand for the next 20 days or so.Six prestigious businesses now had petroleum product inventories: Pakistan State Oil, Total, Go, Shell, and APL. Out of the 9,800 gasoline pumps in the nation, six corporations operate a network of 6,000 retail locations.Due to difficulties opening LCs to supply the remaining 3,800 retail outlets, the remaining oil marketing businesses were unable to import petroleum products.Industry leaders pointed out that the weight of 3,800 retail stores had also been transferred to the stores of six corporations, warning that the IMF agreement might extend the current crisis since there was no money available to import petroleum goods. The State Bank of Pakistan’s governor and the petroleum division had already been warned by the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) that an impending oil crisis was due to difficulties in issuing Letters of Credit (LCs) to import petroleum products.Even some PSO cargo had been cancelled as a result of the LC problem. Because the oil marketing corporations had not been supplying them with gasoline, petroleum dealers stated that they were experiencing a lack of goods. Teams have been deployed, according to an Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) official, to check on the supply of gasoline and diesel at the stations. Teams were also deployed to the depots of petroleum businesses to inspect the product supply, adding that the nation has enough supplies of gasoline and diesel on hand. The regulator had sent letters to the oil marketing corporations urging them to take action against petroleum dealers who were implicated in product hoarding. Musadik Malik, the state minister for petroleum, presided over a meeting of the petroleum division. The moot was informed that there was no scarcity of oil in the nation when it was assessing the availability of petroleum stockpiles. The representatives of the oil firms were instructed to pursue legal action against the petroleum merchants who were stockpiling petroleum goods. To do this, the regulator also sent letters to the provincial governments. Since the coalition administration took office, it has been noted that the petroleum division’s performance has been suspect. Even the gas problem, which had severely hampered people’s quality of life, had not been able to be resolved. According to experts, there appeared to be no governance since the petroleum division failed to deal with the oil dealers’ mafia, which had been robbing customers by inflating the price of gasoline and diesel. They said that the explosives department, which is administratively under the supervision of the petroleum division, has the right to revoke petroleum dealers’ licences but has never really used this power to prosecute the oil sellers’ mafia. Even the oil marketing corporations had the power to stop gasoline deliveries to the petroleum dealers, but the experts said that they had resisted doing so. The federal government does not act against petroleum sellers; instead, they are held accountable by the provincial governments, they said.
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