ISLAMABAD: The federal government has collected around Rs679 billion on account of the Petroleum Development Levy (PDL) during the last three years to meet the country’s budgetary revenue targets.
The petroleum levy collection stood at Rs179 billion in the fiscal year 2017-18, Rs206 billion in 2018-19 and Rs 294 billion in 2019-20, according to an official document available with APP.
“Collection of Petroleum Levy being part of Federal Consolidated Fund, in terms of Article 78(1) of the constitution of Pakistan, is utilized to meet Federal Government’s budgetary requirements,” it said.
Meanwhile, a senior official privy to petroleum sector developed told that the government was working on a prudent strategy to achieve self-reliance in the oil refining sector by upgrading the existing facilities and establishing new deep conversion refineries in different parts of the country.
“The country’s oil refining capacity stood at 417,400 BPD in the last fiscal year, while six more projects, investment initiatives and proposals are at different stages of implementation to increase the capacity by 1.1 million Barrels per Day (BPD),” he said.
As per the data, Pakistan’s total consumption of petroleum products stood at 19.68 Million Tons (MTs) during the fiscal year 2019-20, out of which 11.59 MTs was achieved through local refineries and 8.09 MT through import.
The petrol consumption in the country was 7.6 MTs per annum, out of which 30 percent was being catered from local refineries and rest was being imported to meet the national demand.
Similarly, the consumption of Diesel was around 7.3 MTs/annum. The local production can meet 65 percent of the total demand, while rest is being imported.