Hascol boosts oil storage capacity, lube blending plant to start up in May

Hascol Petroleum Limited has become the largest oil marketing company in the private sector in terms of oil storage in Pakistan.

“Hascol, in collaboration with Dutch company Vitol, has added 232,000 cubic metres of oil storage capacity at Port Qasim [Karachi] with an investment of USD65 million,” Chief Executive Officer Saleem Butt told The Express Tribune.

“With this, our oil storage capacity has surged to 28 days [of consumption] from 16 days earlier,” he said.

Other oil marketing companies’ storage capacity is less than 20 days each.

Hascol Terminals Limited, an associated company of Hascol Petroleum Limited, has completed the process of commissioning its storage facility at Port Qasim. The terminal has started operations, with the first shipment of gasoline having reached the terminal on 6 March 2019.

“With this, the total installed storage capacity surged to 400,000 tons with us. This has turned Hascol into a company that owns the largest oil storage facility in the private sector and second largest in the country after state-owned Pakistan State Oil (PSO), which manages 1.2 million tons of storage facility,” Butt said.

The latest storage facility at Port Qasim is connected to the 700 kilometre pipeline of Pak Arab Pipeline Company (Papco) from Karachi to central Punjab, which can help ease supply outages in Punjab in the future.

Hascol owns 49% of this new storage facility, with Vitol owning the majority.

“Vitol has 28% shareholding in the overall business of Hascol Petroleum Limited,” he said.

Hascol currently has a 13.7% market share of Pakistan’s fuel retail market, behind state-owned Pakistan State Oil (PSO), with a market share of 37%. Hascol said it plans to add 100 more service stations nationwide this year, which would bring its network to 690 by the end of 2019.

“We have a plan to add 100 sites every year till we reach 1,200 sites in the country,” Butt said.

In addition, Hascol is in final stages of setting up a USD20 million lubricant blending plant, in collaboration with German lubricant manufacturer FUCHS. The lube blending plant, which is targeted to start production in May 2019, will produce FUCHS-branded lubricants and greases in Pakistan.