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Supply Chain Break Down #PetrolShortage

Jzaib

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Supply-chain breakdown
Khaleeq Kiani
Updated a day ago
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People are seen using their precious time to stand in queues to buy petrol as they face shortage in the provincial capital. —Online
The supply-chain breakdown in the fuel sector has a striking similarity with the one during the 1965 war, when India had blocked Pakistan’s oil import routes. The situation is unlikely to get normal in two months, except for some cyclical improvements.

Queues outside petrol pumps are long and sales are being rationed not only by retailers, but also by oil marketing companies (OMCs) and refineries.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has been flagging the looming crisis since last June on a monthly basis, and sometimes on a daily basis. There are monthly product review meetings where all oil companies and refineries and the ministry of petroleum are represented, and its deliberations are regularly shared with the finance minister and the prime minister’s secretariat. The prime minister and the finance minister have regularly been holding meetings on energy.

The crisis has developed slowly and over a period of months. The payment problems were there as circular debt emerged from early last year, but it could be true only in the case of furnace oil. The circular debt should not be blamed for drying out transport fuels or petroleum products other than furnace oil. The products are sold and purchased on cash and are mostly produced locally. Crude, too, is bought in long-term supply contracts.

Of the roughly 4m tonnes of petrol consumed per annum, almost 30pc is imported by PSO, and the rest is produced locally. And half of the 7m tonnes of diesel consumed is produced locally, and the remaining is imported.

Overall petrol consumption has increased by 18pc in the first six months of the current fiscal year over the same period last year, mainly because of non-availability of CNG in Punjab. Even if PSO failed to import petrol due to a cancellation of its letters of credit (LC), why didn’t the other companies and refineries keep pace with the growth in demand?

Now, all banks have stopped opening LCs for PSO
The fact is that all refineries, OMCs and retailers wanted to avoid inventory losses as international oil prices dropped.

Why didn’t anybody at the petroleum ministry, finance ministry or Ogra realise that the OMCs were in breach of their licencing obligation to maintain at least 21-35 days of mandatory reserves? What action has been taken for the breach? And the increase in margins and deemed duties since 2000 were linked to increased storage infrastructure. Where are the country’s strategic reserves?

With 67pc overall market share, PSO is at the centre of the problem right now.

Soon after coming into power, the PML-N replaced PSO’s managing director with Amjad Pervaiz Janjua as acting managing director for 90 days, from July 29, 2013. Mr Janjua had neither the experience nor the expertise to run an organisation of this magnitude. He was earlier rejected for a junior post in PSO, but continues to run the country’s largest company by revenue.

Since July 2013, the power sector’s circular debt has increased to Rs222bn from Rs49bn, while total receivables are standing at Rs235bn despite then Rs25bn payment a few days ago. Receivables from PIA have risen from Rs1bn to Rs13bn.

Meanwhile, the company is losing market share. In high speed diesel, it lost sales of 200,000 tonnes during July-December 2014 over the same period last year, and suffered a 10pc drop in market share. In petrol, it lost 2pc market share.

The company has defaulted on loans from local banks, and all banks have now stopped doing business with it. Its borrowing has touched a peak of Rs284bn. The non-receipt of funds resulted in defaults on local as well as international LC payments. Since October 2014, despite SOS calls, no effort was made to resolve the issue by the water and power, petroleum and finance ministries.

As a result, PSO defaulted on Rs19.6bn in October, Rs29.6bn in November and Rs46bn in December 2014. Once it did not have the money to pay, a Pakistani bank had to pay the LC advising bank (international bank). The local bank is charging exorbitant interest on the defaulted amount till it is cleared; the cost is to be absorbed by PSO.

Furthermore, local banks refuse to open LCs for PSO. So far, Citi Bank, NIB, Samba and Habib Metropolitan Bank (HMB) are reluctant to open LCs in favour of the OMC. Some of these banks are small and do not have the capacity to pay international banks when PSO is unable to pay them. Also, the banks, at times, resort to delaying tactics by raising trivial discrepancies.

Recently, PSO was unable to pay HMB, which raised minor discrepancies. Standard Chartered Singapore threatened to take the matter to international court. However, the situation was averted as PSO accepted those discrepancies and HMB was compelled to pay SCB Singapore.

PSO’s fuel stocks have already been exhausted and the next shipment is due on January 25. A repeat of the situation in the summer could be disastrous, and it could not be ruled out.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, January 19th , 2015

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Supply-chain breakdown - Newspaper - DAWN.COM


According to railway minsiter offical account PSO MD is very Good friend of Nawaz Sharif. Jab friends aur families ko hire karo gay tu yahi hoo ga .

In the end pervez rashid will come and give some great explination to fool noon leagues again

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Analysis: Fuelling the fire
Khurram Husain
Published about 6 hours ago
Amid mounting criticism, petroleum minister apologises for fuel crisis

The advisory further mentions “SOS letters written repeatedly” to various ministries since October. In one of these SOS letters, dated Dec 24, then PSO MD warns of “an imminent supply chain breakdown” as a result of default on 16 LCs between Nov 28 and Dec 24.

A breakdown of those 16 LCs shows that 10 of them were for furnace oil imports, and the remaining six were for other fuels like motor gasoline and diesel. Financial problems from the circular debt had already jumped across categories and were impacting imports of all fuels by Dec 24.

The same day that PSO put out this advisory, the petroleum minister went on air and angrily denied that any SOS letters were ever sent.

“Show me these letters,” he challenged the anchor. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

Instead, he insisted, the crisis was due to an unexpected surge in demand and an unplanned closure of a refinery. Immediately officials at PSO put out a revised advisory on the crisis that dropped all mention of defaults and financial problems. Instead the revised document placed all emphasis on “an upsurge in demand of Mogas primarily due to fall in its prices”, as well as to “unplanned shutdown of [a] major local refinery”.

The very next day, a number of channels put two of those SOS letters on the air, zooming in on the language in them. In his next appearance on TV, the minister was again asked about those SOS letters, and what they revealed about the true cause behind the crisis. This time he did not deny their existence, but said simply that “these letters are a routine matter” and one should not read too much into them.

So let’s ask this: how much should we read into the advisories being put out by PSO? For example, a closer look at the revised advisory shows that the spike in demand being blamed for the shortages lasted for only the first three days of January, since motorists waited for the downwardly revised prices to take effect before filling their tanks.

On Jan 1, total sales of petrol nationwide were around 27,000 kilolitres, far above the estimated forecast of 12,000. On Jan 2 and 3 this dropped to 15,000 before dropping to practically zero on Jan 4, as tanks around the country were largely topped up. From Jan 5 till 15, sales go from a peak of 12,000 to 5,000 kilolitres, at or below forecast.

The refinery shutdown also didn’t last more than four days. It began on Jan 8, when output fell from 890 tonnes of petrol to 206 tonnes. From Jan 12, the refinery in question — PARCO — has been operating at or above its pre-shutdown levels. Considering the refinery is located less than a day’s drive from most petrol pumps in Punjab, how is it that the shortages persisted for more than a week after its output had been restored fully?

Sources at PNSC, the state-owned shipping company that arranges vessels for PSO, confirm that the latter’s financial difficulties have severely hampered its ability to import oil. “They’ll place an order for a vessel one day, only to cancel it the next because they don’t have money to pay.”

As an example, the source says that on Dec 15, an order was placed for eight vessels for delivery in January. PNSC nominated the ships, but on Jan 1, PSO cancelled five of the cargoes, citing lack of funds. On Jan 7, they cancelled two more.

These cargoes were for furnace oil, used in power generation, but PNSC sources say financial difficulties have disrupted imports of refined oil products as well. The last vessel that arrived on Jan 12, for instance, “was ordered on Jan 1, then they changed it to Jan 5 citing shortage of funds”, says the source. “Then they changed it again to Jan 7.”

In fact every shipment of oil is now arranged as if it were an emergency, says the source. “They asked us for a vessel to be ready for loading at Oman on Jan 22,” he says. “Then last week they called and asked for the date to be moved up to Jan 18 instead.”

Such reschedulings have become routine, he says, and they illustrate the haphazard and ad hoc manner in which imports have to be arranged given the extreme uncertainty that surrounds PSO’s financial situation.

On another occasion a vessel with 55,000 tonnes of petrol was left floating at outer anchorage for five days before it could berth because another vessel was in the process of being discharged. A normally functioning supply chain would see the arrival of vessels in a way to prevent their overlap. The daily cost to PSO for a vessel is $15,000, according to the source.

The oil supply chain is in serious disarray, living day to day depending on availability of funds, and therefore very vulnerable to disruption. The spike in demand in the first three days of January and the four-day curtailment of supplies from PARCO added to the problem, but they did not create it.

Published in Dawn January 20th , 2015
 
Its simple noora govt is after the last peny of the nation cause they think, sooner or later army will shut the down!
 
ae diwane patwar khan ha
on topic i was waiting for 5 hours for my turn when only one car was left in the queue infront of me a man came and said petrol muk gya aey kr jao
 
Its simple noora govt is after the last peny of the nation cause they think, sooner or later army will shut the down!
Nhie bvhie woh jumhoriyat bacha rahay hain

ae diwane patwar khan ha
on topic i was waiting for 5 hours for my turn when only one car was left in the queue infront of me a man came and said petrol muk gya aey kr jao
u r not the only one., It happened to MBA teacher to as well. Just imagine now pretty chicks even have to wait in lines. kya banay ga ish mulk ka :D
 
I still dont get it
Oil prices have fallen by 60%.
This should have encouraged you to buy more oil, while its cheap.
I am sure all of that 60% drop has not been transferred to the end customer. Oil companies and Govt would have some of it for themselves.
Their is no valid reason for fuel shortage unless the GOP wants it to be their .

Even in India, it was recently announced that Drop in Oil prices will save us 50 Billion USD. State owned Oil companies have only transfered 20% of the drop in prices to the end customers, GOI has imposed additional 12% tax on oil, which will help reduce Fiscal Deficit. while remaining is used to reduce debt of oil marketing companies

Indian Govt has also anounced plans to Double its storage capacity of Crude from 45 days to 90+(15 days storage held by Pvt sector based Reliance industries) days. This will enable us to build up reserves when oil is cheap.
 
I was just told when natural gas & electricity loadshedding increases, demand for petrol goes up - & to brushup on my econ 101 #PMLN
 
The naval blockade happened in 1971, not in 1965. Can someone correct me on this? @HRK @niaz @RescueRanger

There was certainly no naval blockade in 1965. Indian Navy sent 4 frigates to blockade Chittagong in 1971. In the West; Pakistan Navy had been bottled up in Karachi harbour after the Ossa FAC attacks. However there was no naval blockade as such.

Hostilities with India were expected ever since start of the military action in East Pakistan early 1971. Main existential threat to Pakistan is of Indian Army advancing along the Punjab - Sindh border and cutting Pakistan in two. Therefore all upcountry depots were kept full for forestall any such eventuality.

I was physically there and working for Esso in 1971. I can assure you that there was no break down in the supply chain. Even when two of the Esso tanks were on fire, tank lorries & railway wagons were being filled. However most oil movement was at night and by rail. I can also confirm that Esso storage tanks at Keamari had more than one month’s stock.

In my lifetime Pakistan has never seen petrol supply breakdown except now.
 
There was certainly no naval blockade in 1965. Indian Navy sent 4 frigates to blockade Chittagong in 1971. In the West; Pakistan Navy had been bottled up in Karachi harbour after the Ossa FAC attacks. However there was no naval blockade as such.

Hostilities with India were expected ever since start of the military action in East Pakistan early 1971. Main existential threat to Pakistan is of Indian Army advancing along the Punjab - Sindh border and cutting Pakistan in two. Therefore all upcountry depots were kept full for forestall any such eventuality.

I was physically there and working for Esso in 1971. I can assure you that there was no break down in the supply chain. Even when two of the Esso tanks were on fire, tank lorries & railway wagons were being filled. However most oil movement was at night and by rail. I can also confirm that Esso storage tanks at Keamari had more than one month’s stock.

In my lifetime Pakistan has never seen petrol supply breakdown except now.
Dear Niaz Saheb. Much appreciate your detailed reply.
 
Nhie bvhie woh jumhoriyat bacha rahay hain


u r not the only one., It happened to MBA teacher to as well. Just imagine now pretty chicks even have to wait in lines. kya banay ga ish mulk ka :D
I say kill this bastard jamhoriyaat!
 
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