The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) came down hard on the Managing Director (MD) of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) on Tuesday over an alarming oil spill involving nearly 1.2 million litres of High-Speed Diesel (HSD), raising serious concerns of gross negligence and possible theft.
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The PAC, chaired by Junaid Akbar Khan, took up the matter after receiving a formal complaint from MNA Jamshed Dasti and outright rejected PSO’s internal report. The committee expressed deep dissatisfaction with the MD’s explanations, which failed to justify how such a colossal volume of diesel — worth hundreds of millions of rupees — simply vanished due to a so-called “valve error.”
The Secretary of the Petroleum Division, shockingly unaware of the incident, admitted that the spill reflected serious oversight and recommended forming an independent, multi-stakeholder probe. He also did not rule out the possibility of criminal activity — a veiled reference to oil theft or deliberate sabotage.
The PSO MD claimed the disaster occurred on August 23, 2024, at JIMCO while transferring diesel from PAPCO. According to him, negligence during a Friday prayer break led to the overflow of Tank 803 — a claim the committee found hard to swallow. While PSO reported 1,190,967 litres spilled, only 167,313 litres were recovered, raising eyebrows over the fate of the remaining fuel.
PSO claimed Rs. 41 million was recovered through internal disciplinary measures, with five employees fired and a senior GM demoted. But the PAC was unconvinced, especially regarding the environmental damage and PSO’s attempts to whitewash the event. Officials failed to confirm whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had even been consulted, further exposing regulatory gaps.
In response, the PAC rejected PSO’s findings and referred the case to a sub-committee for an in-depth investigation, signaling that this may be more than just a case of incompetence — it could be a cover-up of large-scale pilferage.
