Pakistan has achieved status of an exporter of furnace oil as a prominent refinery’s ship loaded with the fuel left Karachi Port early in the morning on Tuesday.

The government bailed out the outdated refineries for a limited period of two months. It enabled resumption of power production from the oil-utilised plants to allow refineries overcome the problem of furnace oil supply. 

“After February 28, the government will not take any responsibility for furnace oil and companies (refineries) will deal with it by themselves,” an official at the Petroleum Division told a private news agency.

“Byco refinery has planned to export around 25,000 tons of furnace oil…,” the Petroleum Division official said. When contacted, Byco neither provided confirmation nor issued denial of the particular development.

According to private media organisation, it currently remains unknown regarding which is the country labelled as export destination of the Pakistani cargo. A market source, however, stated it was going to an oil-rich Middle Eastern country. The source further informed that the refinery was exporting the cargo through a Dutch-based international oil trading firm, which had a major stake in a local oil marketing company and operated storages in Pakistan. “OMCs procure furnace oil from the refineries as per demand of power producers,” he said.