Pakistan's Attock Refinery Limited has shut down its main crude distillation unit after road closures in Islamabad linked to the arrival of foreign delegates blocked oil tanker movement to and from the facility, the company said in a filing to the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
The refiner said the suspension of oil tank lorry movement has adversely impacted both crude oil receipts and product dispatches, directly affecting refinery operations. With product dispatch constrained, stocks of motor spirit and high-speed diesel have risen significantly, while crude oil receipts have also declined sharply due to the road closures.
The unit that has been shut down has a capacity of 32,400 barrels per stream day, part of the refinery's total capacity of 50,000 barrels per day. The company said operations would resume upon improvement of the current traffic restrictions.
The shutdown comes after a period of improved performance.
Attock Refinery's capacity utilization rose to around 70% in the quarter ended March, up from about 60% in the preceding quarter, according to a report by Arif Habib Limited. Product uplift from the refinery in March totaled approximately 127,000 metric tons — including gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil — compared with 115,000 metric tons in the same month last year.
Pakistan's overall crude oil imports in the nine months through March totaled 8.6 million metric tons, according to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
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