Second Russian crude oil shipment reaches Karachi port

KARACHI: A second shipment of 55,000 tonnes of discounted Russian crude oil arrived at the Karachi port Tuesday.

Once its berthing plan is confirmed, the ship will be docked at the oil pier. Earlier reports from sources mentioned that the vessel named 'Clyde Noble' was carrying Urals oil en route to Karachi port in the Arabian Sea.

It was reported that the second cargo, under the deal between Islamabad and Moscow, was slated to arrive on June 20; however, it was delayed by a week and scheduled to dock today.

A lack of space in the Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) storage tanks was cited as the reason behind the delay. PRL is the first domestic refinery to obtain crude oil from Russia under the government-led deal.

Pakistan received its first cargo of Russian crude oil on June 12 when a tanker carrying 45,000 tonnes of crude oil docked at the Karachi port.

The government had placed the first order of 100,000 tonnes of Russian crude oil in April this year after months-long parleys between the two countries over the terms and conditions of the deal.

Under this deal, Russia sent the first oil tanker carrying 100,000 metric tonnes of crude, which arrived at the Omani port early this month. However, the authorities decided that it would be transported to Pakistan through smaller ships as the Pakistani port could not accommodate heavy ships carrying more than 50,000 tonnes of oil cargo.

It is worth noting that the vessel, which was loaded with Ural crude on April 21 at a Russian port, was delayed for 10 days due to technical reasons.

"It then arrived at Egypt’s Suez Canal on May 17, where it waited in a long queue for 12 days to cross the canal."

Pakistan imports 70% of its crude oil, which is refined by PRL, National Refinery Limited, Pak Arab Refinery Limited, and Byco Petroleum. The remaining 30% is locally produced and refined by Attock Refinery Limited, a domestic entity.

Oil industry insiders said that the PRL was currently in the process of refining the Russian crude to produce the much-needed petroleum products. They informed that Russian crude oil was being blended with Arabian crude, which arrived a few days back following a PRL order for the necessary oil.