Pakistan has resumed its oil imports after a four-month halt as the demand for power is expected to rise in the summer. The country stopped its fuel imports back in December 2017 as the fuel demand significantly dropped.
Another reason behind the decreased oil demand was that Pakistan switched to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) resources to provide energy and power during winters.
Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Pakistan’s main oil importer, has now released tender notices to invite bids for the supply of fuel over the year.
Increase in Demand
PSO didn’t specify the amount of fuel that it is going to import in its tender notices. They did, however, put forward their delivery dates in the invitation for bids.
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The specified delivery dates for oil are May 25- June 10 and June 11 – June 30. In 2017 PSO imported an average of about 400,000 to 650,000 tonnes of fuel oil every month.
The last order was put up for the month of January 2018, however, it was later canceled due to no demand in the power sector. PSO even exported two fuel cargos at the start of this year as its local supply increased.
Nevyn Nah, Oil Products Analyst at Energy Aspects in Singapore says that Pakistan’s summer switch towards power production through fuel might be because of the flaws in gas-powered stations. He added:
Operations at the new LNG power plants are reportedly not smooth and there’s potential delay to the start-up of several new LNG plants.
It is pertinent to mention here that the due to increased demand, there’s a visible shortfall in power all over the country. The government previously told that there would no load-shedding in the month of Ramzan. However, they quickly backed out on their word and announced that only Sehr and Iftar times would be load-shedding free.
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