Page 5 - AsianOil Week 19 2021

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further cuts may be made if oil product storage “This time it is not a full lockdown like last
runs out. An unnamed BPCL official suggested time,” he said. “Sales in April was about 90% of
that India might opt to export some diesel to March and we expect May could be about 5%
address the storage issues. lower than April.”
BPCL, which operates a 240,000 barrel per Reuters noted, however, that HPCL was con-
day (bpd) refinery in Mumbai, is understood to ducting maintenance at its 150,000 bpd Mum-
have cut its crude imports by 1mn barrels in May. bai refinery that had taken some of its capacity
Another source revealed that imports in June offline.
could also be cut by 2mn barrels. MRPL is also conducting maintenance at its
HPCL chairman M K Surana told the news- 300,000 bpd facility, with an unnamed company
wire that while India’s fuel consumption was official saying: “The [60,000 bpd] crude and
expected to fall by 5% month on month in May, other units will start operations from the end of
his company did not immediately plan to cut this month, we will decide on the future course
runs. after seeing local demand.”™

Pakistani pipeline polemic

PIPELINES & THE Pakistani government’s plan to unify two both SSGC and SNGP to speed up their talks
TRANSPORT state-run natural gas transmission networks has with developers of two new liquefied natural gas
reportedly met resistance from Khyber Pakh- (LNG) import projects on accessing their pipe-
tunkhwa (KP) and Sindh provinces. line networks.
The two provincial governments have The government suspects the utilities of
objected to the plans on the grounds that such a trying to protect both their both infrastructure
move would infringe on their devolved powers, monopolies and their LNG import business, an
the ANI news agency reported on May 12, citing unnamed energy ministry official told local daily
several local news outlets. Dawn at the time.
An unnamed Oil and Gas Development The All Pakistan CNG Association (APC-
Corp. (OGDC) official said the plan to centralise NGA) accused SNGP last month of deliberately
control of Sui Southern Gas Co. (SSGC) and Sui delaying the approval of a third-party access
Northern Gas Pipelines’ (SNGP) transmission agreement.
pipelines had been rejected on the grounds that “We have been left with no option but to
it violated the 18th Amendment of the Constitu- repeatedly request the SNGP to approve the ini-
tion of Pakistan. The amendment was passed by tial third-party access agreement from its board
Pakistan’s National Assembly in April 2010 and of directors. However, SNGP has yet to process
granted additional financial and administrative and place it before the board for approval,” APC-
powers to provincial authorities. NGA group leader Ghayas Paracha told Dawn.
Sindh government officials have reportedly “It clearly reflects an ‘intentional delay’ on the
threatened to take the matter to court if the cen- part of the company that apparently doesn’t want
tral government ignores their objections. [the] private sector to import gas and distribute
News of resistance to the planned unification to their respective business community by using
of the country’ transmission lines comes after it [the] existing public sector gas distribution
emerged in April that Islamabad had ordered network.”™

Week 19 13•May•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P5