ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan State Oil’s (PSO) liabilities against power sector have surged to Rs205 billion and resultantly the company has reduced fuel supply to the power sector, it is learnt.

According to official data, the oil giant’s total payables to local refineries and international fuel suppliers have touched Rs177.5 billion mark while receivables from power and other sectors including Pakistan Railways (PR) and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) stand at Rs 204.781 billion.

The PSO is supplying fuel worth over Rs32 billion monthly to the power sector, while the sector is paying back only around Rs15-16 billion per month because of which PSO’s outstanding amount is continuously increasing, a PSO official told Business Recorder.

He said that the circular debt had crippled the national economy, adding that if the government did not take immediate steps in resolving the circular debt issue, the company will go in default.

They added that during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, PSO’s liabilities against the power sector had gone up by Rs85 billion, as a result of which the company’s total outstanding dues against the power sector and other clients touched Rs205 billion.

The Hub Power Company Limited (Hubco) is the leading defaulter of PSO with Rs99 billion outstanding dues followed by Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) with Rs53.66 billion, Kot Addu Power Company (Kapco) with Rs22.68 billion.

The company has to receive Rs3.18 billion from Pakistan International Airline (PIA), Rs366 million from Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), over Rs8 billion from Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Rs463 million from National Logistic Cell (NLC) and Rs1.34 billion from Pakistan Railways.

The company is to receive Rs1.4 billion on account of audited price differential claim of High-Speed Diesel (HSD), over Rs3.4 billion on account of price differential on Low-Sulphur Fuel Oil and High-Sulphur Fuel Oil (LSFO/HSFO), Rs1.36 billion on account of price differential on imported PMG, Rs8.612 billion price differential under GLMP and Rs1.419 billion on account of financial charges on PIA.

At present, the PSO has to pay back Rs82.3 billion to local refineries. Of the total, Rs26.8 billion is to be repaid to the Pak Arab Refinery Limited (Parco), Rs14.5 billion to Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), Rs9.277 billion to National Refinery Limited (NRL), Rs28.91 billion to ARL, Rs3.158 billion to Bosicor and Rs520 million to others.

The national fuel supplying company has to payback Rs94.325billion to Kuwait Petroleum Company Limited and other international fuel suppliers on account of Letter of Credit (LC) payments. The PSO’s total payables to local and international fuel suppliers stand at Rs179 billions out of which Rs77.7 billion is overdue.