Govt working on policy to increase petroleum commodities production

September 16, 2019: The government is working on a multi-pronged strategy to increase production of petroleum commodities by revamping the existing oil refineries and opening up the sector for private companies to create an environment of competition.

According to a senior official of the Petroleum Ministry, three oil refineries, out of five existing facilities are inefficient, and the government has announced a 10-year tax exemption for them to increase their capacity.

The given concession would also be applicable for new deep conversion oil refineries.

He said an unprecedented incentives package is in place for setting up new deep conservation oil refineries, enabling them to import machinery, vehicles, plants and equipment and other materials.

Recently, he said, the government had given a roadmap for ease-of-doing-business in the petroleum sector, removing red-tapism in getting approval for investment and advancements in different fields.

He said a policy is being worked out, under which procedural hitches are being removed to facilitate investors in the oil refining and marketing sector.

Answering a question, he said, the overall storage capacity of Motor Spirit (MS) and High Speed Diesel (HSD) oil has witnessed around 13.07 percent increase during the fiscal year 2018-19 as compared to the corresponding year.

He said the storage capacity for both the MS and HSD oil has been increased from 1,712,691 MT to 1,936,550 MT during the period.