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| OCAC wants fuel price burden reduced for poor |
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
By our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: The Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC), in a meeting with the Economic Advisory Council (EAC), asked it to reduce high fuel price burden on poor through a holistic approach involving the entire petroleum sector.
In the meeting held the other day, representatives of the downstream industry including refineries and oil marketing companies were present, said a statement issued by the OCAC on Wednesday.
On the price differential claim (PDC), the OCAC in its presentation urged the EAC to ease the burden on the poor segment of the population.
The outstanding amount owed to the industry is still around Rs60 billion (and is increasing every day by around Rs1 billion), creating liquidity crunch and forcing four refineries to reduce their production. This has affected availability of vital products like motor spirit (petrol), jet fuel and fuel oil for power houses.
The margins of refineries and oil marketing companies are only 2 to 3 per cent, which are considerably lower than those of fertiliser, tobacco, cement and telecommunication companies. These were barely keeping the industry afloat and any endeavour to amend the refinery pricing formula or OMC margin basis would have a serious adverse impact on industry operations, the statement said.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
