Russian oil not likely to help reduce petrol price in Pakistan

• Russian oil's heavy, will produce 50% furnace oil: industry people.
• PRL received first cargo of Russian oil of 45,000 tonnes last week.
• Some suggest move to import this oil might be politically motivated.

KARACHI: Russian crude oil will produce more furnace oil (FO) than high-speed diesel (HSD), which would not reduce the prices of petroleum products domestically, The News learned Monday.

According to the oil industry players, the arrival of the first cargo of Russian crude oil has been celebrated from the top level of the government to the media.

However, the anticipated reduction in the prices of petroleum products, particularly diesel, and petrol, in the near future would not be possible.

Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) received the first cargo of Russian crude oil of 45,000 tonnes on Sunday, and its discharging from the vessel started on Monday.

"The complete discharge of this crude oil will take twenty to thirty hours," the Karachi Port Trust stated.

On the other hand, the oil industry people believed that the much-talked-about Russian oil was being cherished as a significant achievement, despite its commercial viability not looking promising.

They pointed out that the Russian crude oil was heavy and would produce 50% furnace oil, 32% high-speed diesel, and 18% of the remaining products.

On the other hand, they pointed out that domestic refineries could extract 50% HSD and 25% furnace oil from Arabian crude oil.

They believed that Russian crude oil might disturb the economic pattern of petroleum products from crude oil, and for it to be more commercially viable, the oil price should be at a higher discounted level.

They said that the first Russian cargo was a trial. After its processing, the report of its refining would be forwarded to the government to determine its economic viability for the country.

According to them, the buying of Russian crude oil by the current government also seems to be an attempt to defuse the narrative of the former government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which continuously castigated the sitting government over dragging its feet from importing crude oil from Russia.

Industry people said that producing more furnace oil from this crude oil would further add to the existing stock of this fuel. Pakistan currently possesses huge stocks of FO in the range of hundreds of thousands of tonnes due to its non-lifting by the local power plants.

They said that Pakistani refineries have struggled to dispose of this massive stock after the power generation plants refused to stockpile FO.

Refineries also exported some of the stock to the international market at a lower price to keep the operations of their refineries running smoothly.