By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Attock Refinery Ltd., Pakistan’s oldest refiner, said it plans to build a new deep-conversion refinery with capacity of 50,000 barrels a day, provided it can secure steady supplies of crude from fields in the country’s north and the government backs the project.
The company disclosed the plan in its annual report, released on Monday. It gave no timeline, cost or site for the facility, which would be close to the size of its existing plant. The refinery, a subsidiary of Attock Oil Co., has a nameplate capacity of 53,400 barrels a day.
“ARL has plans to install a state-of-the-art new deep conversion refinery of 50,000 BPD capacity, if sustainable enhanced supplies of local crude from the North become available and necessary support is received from the government side,” the company said in the report.
The conditions underline the constraint that has shaped the refinery’s operations for years. Attock is built around domestic crude, and its throughput depends on how much local oil reaches it. The company said it began receiving crude from a newly discovered reserve during the final quarter of the fiscal year ended June, which it said could support higher utilization if supply holds. Capacity utilization rose to about 71% in the year from 69% a year earlier.
Even so, the annual report shows the plant remains exposed to weak demand at home. Crude distillation units were partially shut on several occasions because of lower domestic offtake of products. Attock supplied 1.55 million metric tons of products during the year and exported about 172,500 tons of low-sulfur fuel oil to offset soft local demand for furnace oil, a fuel Pakistan’s power sector increasingly avoids.
Euro-V Push
The larger, nearer-term project is an upgrade of the existing plant. Attock said one of its biggest challenges is bringing its units up to Euro-V fuel standards, and that it has drawn up a strategic expansion plan to improve the quality of its products.
The plan centers on two pieces of equipment. A continuous catalyst regeneration unit would raise output of premier motor gasoline and lift the octane rating of the gasoline pool to Euro-V levels. The company said that would remove the need for octane-boosting additives and end naphtha exports. Separately, a revamp of the diesel hydrodesulphurization unit is expected to cut the sulfur content of high-speed diesel to 10 parts per million.
The company estimated the upgrade will cost about $600 million. It has completed licensor front-end engineering design studies for both the catalyst unit and the diesel revamp, and has hired Studi Technologie Progetti SpA of Italy to handle project front-end engineering design and project management consultancy. Attock said drawings and other deliverables spanning management, process, mechanical, civil, electrical and instrumentation work are being exchanged with the Italian firm, which it said puts the design package at roughly 90% complete.
The company’s report was published days after Attock, National Refinery Ltd., Pakistan Refinery Ltd. and Cnergyico Pk Ltd. signed upgrade agreements with Inter State Gas Systems, the state-owned entity the Petroleum Division has named to oversee the program. The deals, signed under the government’s brownfield refining policy, are expected to draw about $5 billion in investment over five years. Pak-Arab Refinery Ltd., the fifth major refiner, didn’t sign, with sources saying it considers its technology sufficiently modern.
The policy, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Energy on July 28, offers 10% customs or regulatory duty protection on imported petrol and diesel for seven years. Refiners face a five-year window to finance, build and commission their projects.
Earnings Rebound
Attock is entering the investment cycle from a position of strength. The company reported a profit of 22.1 billion rupees for fiscal 2026, an 85% increase, and declared a dividend of 17.50 rupees a share, according to an Arif Habib Ltd. report on the sector. Listed refiners together earned 54.8 billion rupees after a 10.5 billion-rupee loss a year earlier, as diesel margins against Arab Light crude widened to $29 a barrel from $9.7. Arif Habib attributed part of the jump to supply disruptions and procurement difficulties that followed the start of the U.S.-Iran conflict in March.
The refiner said it paid 156 billion rupees in taxes and duties to the national exchequer during the year and saved $167.13 million in foreign exchange through import substitution and exports. Attock was incorporated on Nov. 8, 1978, as a private limited company and became a public company on June 26, 1979. It is principally engaged in refining crude oil.
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