The country’s largest oil refinery will be closed until November 18 for maintenance

• The refinery will be closed from October 10th to November 18th.
• Parco covers 40-50% of the country’s oil needs.
• The facility can process 120,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

KARACHI: Pak Arab Refinery Limited (Parco), the country’s largest oil refinery, is set to shut down operations for about 40 days for maintenance and inspection. The News reported on Thursday.

“The refinery will be shut down for 38 days, from October 10 to November 18,” Parco CEO Irteza Qureshi told the publication a day earlier.

The official noted that the shutdown process has already begun and that the refinery will be completely shut down by Thursday.

As the country’s largest refinery, Parco has the capacity to process 120,000 barrels of crude oil daily and plays a key role in meeting domestic demand for petroleum products.

“Parco covers 40-50% of the country’s oil needs,” the industry sources said.

It should be noted that Parco is a joint venture between the Government of Pakistan (60%) and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (40%). Regarding the long refinery outage, Qureshi mentioned that Pakistan Refinery and Attock Refinery also experienced outages in January and February this year. He explained that the closure of Parco was necessary for maintenance reasons.

Meanwhile, Descon Engineering Ltd has been awarded the turnaround contract to maintain Parco.

Oil industry workers noted that government authorities have instructed other refineries in the country to boost oil production due to Parco’s shutdown, which will last more than a month, in order to meet demand.

They emphasized that, to meet the country’s energy needs, proper storage arrangements are vital. The refinery undergoes significant shutdowns every three to five years for inspections and necessary upgrades.

The CEO said the refinery will remain closed with government approval and this will not affect the oil supply chain in the country as necessary arrangements have been made to ensure continued supply of petroleum products.

He added that under the policy, oil companies are required to maintain 20 days of storage for petroleum products, in addition to the five to six days of stock kept at refineries.