ISLAMABAD: The government has decided in principle to give another extension to Mohammad Rasheed Jang, Managing Director of the Pak-Arab Refinery (Parco) to win back the UAE administration’s support for the setting up of $5 billion export-oriented Khalifa Coastal Refinery, a senior official told our sources.
“The government will notify any moment the third extension of Rasheed Jang as MD Parco,” he said.When contacted, GA Sabri, additional secretary and spokesman for the Petroleum Ministry, confirmed that the UAE government has agreed to pursue the project for which a working committee of Abu Dhabi government’s IPIC and Parco will meet in Dubai in February and finalise the future line of action on way forward about the project.
However, he made it clear that the government would not offload its shares in Parco to Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company - state organ of Abdu Dhabi, which invests abroad in oil and gas sector. In Parco, Pakistan owns 60 percent shares, IPIC 30 percent and OMV 10 percent.
“Some three months back, the UAE government had asked the government to offload its shares to IPIC as it wants to take over the charge of Parco.It is pertinent to mention that Rasheed Jang came to Pakistan in 1989 as representative of IPIC to construct Parco, which came on stream in September 2000 at a cost of $886 million with a capacity to refine 100,000 barrels per day.
The dispute came to surface when the government refused to grant another extension to Mr Jang who has already availed two extensions of three years each. But this became a major issue for the UAE government, which communicated to Pakistan that it would not initiate the project unless and until Mr Jang got another extension.
To a question the official said the government being the largest shareholder in Parco wanted to appoint its own man as MD. But in the past some questionable decisions were made under which the MD would be appointed with consensus of the board of governors, not with majority decision. So the government move was opposed by IPIC, which owns 30 percent shares. The working committee meeting of IPIC and Parco, which was to be held in November 2008, will now be held in Dubai in February.
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