The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has projected to increase the storage capacity of petroleum products within 2 years. In the last three years OGRA has granted more than 41 licenses for storage construction. These storage facilities have been established under the supervision of OGRA for ensuring adherence to standards and sustainable logistics. These steps have resulted in the addition of around 288,733 metric tons storage in the system (petrol 102,031 and diesel 186,802) since petrol crises in 2015. Work is still being done to increase this storage to more than 600,000 metric tons of storage within next 2 to 3 years. Ogra has made it mandatory for the oil marketing companies (OMCs) to enhance oil storage facilities before applying for marketing licenses
In January 2015, a commission set was up by the then prime minister to investigate the 10-day oil crisis which almost paralyzed the country. The report of that commission blamed almost the entire oil supply chain. At that time, the two-member commission comprising Zahid Muzaffar and Zafar Masud recommended structural reforms in the energy sector and maintaining above 300,000 tons of fuel stocks at all times to cover at least 20 days of consumption.
The recent wave of acute gas shortage across the country has been devastating for the industrial and energy sector. The reason for this shortage has been that during December 2018, overall demand for gas surged manifold due to increased consumption and the situation became more critical due to sudden reduction in gas supplies from two gas fields namely Gambat (PPL) and Kunnar-Pasakhi Deep (KPD) owned by OGDCL due to condensate storage problem as refineries stopped uplifting condensate. This condensate problem reduced gas supply by 50 mmcfd, further worsening the line pack, thus resulting in even greater drop in gas pressure.
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