LAHORE: The fuel supply situation on Thursday worsened further in the city, as almost 80 per cent of petrol stations closed down and the rest 20pc faced long queues and restricted sales to cover maximum clientele.

The station owners also kept telling the vehicle owners that the situation might persist for two weeks as the marketing companies were struggling to import oil in a severe financial crunch situation, with the PSO being the main culprit in these crises.

“The owners are getting only 20 per cent of what they required,” says Muhammad Jehanzeb. The main purpose of the owners is to keep maximum vehicles moving, rather than filling tanks. So, they are restricting sales between Rs100 and Rs200 for motorcyclists and up to Rs500 for car owners. Otherwise, with 20pc supplies, 80pc of vehicles would go off road and life in the city would come to a grinding halt. Thus, it is more of management, rather than supplies, he said.

“There may be some relief in the next 24 hours as fog is gone and more trailers may be inducted into the supply chain,” says Malik Shahbaz, who deals in the oil supply business. But even then, the relief would only be around 10pc. The oil tankers can only make the supply more efficient, but cannot increase it. Whatever they get would start arriving quickly and more efficiently but basic crisis would persist: the oil shortages, which have increased to 70pc of total demand, he claimed.

“Another dimension, which has worsened the crisis, is non-availability of CNG, which has transferred the entire burden to the petrol supplies,” explains Fazal, a CNG station owner.

Had the government spared some gas, the situation could have been retrieved to a large extent. The sector could have taken over two million vehicles off the petrol stations. But it has not been the case. With CNG stations off for more than two months, the entire burden had to be sustained by oil sector, which has suffered even more problems. The trouble is government cannot spare gas, because it was also facing almost the same level of shortages.

The World Bank had predicted that Pakistan would be 70pc energy deficit country by 2020. It seems Pakistan has arrived there even earlier.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2015

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