IOC, referring to its own loss, had been pushing NOC to timely submit demand projection and strictly adhere to the payment schedule. Recently, it had even warned of slashing supply if the state-owned petroleum monopolist did not comply with the payment schedule.[break]
However, amid uncertainty of fund, cash-strapped NOC had neither submitted the demand projection nor made a categorical payment commitment this month.
“We received just 552 kiloliters of petroleum products from Raxaul depot, the largest import point, on Monday,” said NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Dhungel.
The supply made on the day was just one-fourth of the regular daily import that NOC used to receive from Raxaul. Supplies from other IOC depots and Barauni refinery too remained low.
NOC, however, said the sudden decline in import will not affect the supply in the market. Dhungel said NOC has well over 25,500 KL of petroleum products in stock, which is enough to meet demand for about a week.
NOC Chief Digambhar Jha said the corporation has already initiated talks with the Indian supplier, requesting it to withdraw its step, to ensure normal imports immediately. Jha mainly informed the Indian supplier that NOC has already requested the government to arrange it a fresh loan to finance normal imports. He also told IOC that he was hopeful of getting positive response soon.
“We hope IOC will consider our request seriously,” Jha said and also pressed the government to arrange it Rs 1.50 billion instantly to avert looming fuel shortage.
As the government has consistently refrained from adjusting domestic prices in line with the international trend, Jha said NOC has suffered well over Rs 6 billion in loss over the first 10 months of this fiscal year alone.
While it seriously distorted its fund flow, NOC over the past six months has relied solely on loans to finance imports. It has already taken loans of about Rs 5 billion from the government and financial institutions to finance imports during the period.
This has raised NOC´s total outstanding loans liability, including those that it took in 2008 and 2009, to Rs 17.39 billion. It includes Rs 3.90 billion taken from Employees Provident Fund and another Rs 1.13 billion taken from Citizens Investment Trust.
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