Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) confirmed on Tuesday that it has bagged yet another Rs7.73 billion from Power Holding (Private) Limited (PHL) under the government’s circular debt “settlement” plan—its third such payout in as many months.
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The instalments—twelve in total, each worth Rs7.73 billion—are part of a controversial government-backed arrangement that will funnel Rs92 billion in interest payments to OGDCL alone. This is in addition to the staggering Rs82 billion in principal already cleared for the state-owned giant last year.
Critics argue that while households and industries suffer crippling power bills, outages, and rising tariffs, OGDCL continues to draw massive payouts with little scrutiny of how the funds are being utilized. The government even compelled the company to waive Rs72 billion in liquidated damages—raising questions about sweetheart deals and selective concessions in an energy sector drowning in over Rs2.3 trillion of circular debt.
Instead of driving real reform in power distribution, tariff structures, and line losses, the circular debt “settlement” is increasingly seen as a cash-transfer mechanism to keep entities like OGDCL comfortable, while ordinary consumers foot the bill through higher energy costs.
Despite enjoying the position of Pakistan’s largest exploration and production firm, OGDCL’s mounting reliance on government-backed bailouts exposes how deeply flawed the energy chain remains. Analysts warn that such payouts may temporarily ease OGDCL’s liquidity but do nothing to resolve the systemic inefficiencies bleeding Pakistan’s power sector.
With yet another Rs7.73 billion in its pocket, OGDCL’s windfall underscores the widening gap between public sacrifice and corporate gain—an imbalance that continues to define the country’s unresolved circular debt nightmare.
