Lahore               -                Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited, Pakistan’s largest oil refinery by design and installed capacity, has been constrained to put its refinery on “cold circulation”, due to absence of demand for POL products. Consumption of POL products in the nation have fallen drastically subsequent to the announcement of lockdowns across provinces to deal with the coronavirus Pandemic which is spreading not only across Pakistan but globally.

Byco chose not to fully shut down the refining complex so that crude refining operations can be restarted in a matter of hours should the demand pick up again. “Byco appreciates the Ministry of Energy’s proactive steps, and supports the GoP’sstance of prioritizing consumption of domestic crude oil and condensate, keeping domestic refineries operating, and minimizing import of POL products.

Byco is hopeful that OMC’s will act upon the MoE’s directive for oil marketing companies to stop importing the POL products and increase off-take of petroleum products from domestic refineries. We anticipate that demand will pick up soon so that we can quickly resume production at Byco.