Renovate oil refineries with potential usage.

Byline: KHALIL AHMED

Profile:

_: Mr. Barkatullah Lone is the Chairman of the GB International Economic Forum and a renowned young Economist of Pakistan. He was ranked in the top ten Economists in Pakistan in the year 2017. He is a Chartered Accountant from England and Wales, Chartered Management Accountant from the UK, Chartered Certified Accountant from the UK, Chartered Global Management Accountant from the USA, Gold Medalist Management Accountant and Public Finance Accountant from Pakistan plus he holds a master's degree in Economics and Law from Karachi University.

He has been associated with the corporate sector in Finance and Audit profession in various positions (CFO/GM Finance/Chief Internal Auditor) for the last many years. He has rendered his professional Finance/Audit/Accounting services in Pakistan as well as abroad. Simultaneous with his job career, he has been appearing on various Local and International TV channels as an Economic and Financial Analyst for the last Eight years. His Articles on Economy and Finance are also published in various reputed magazines. Professional-level research has also been part of his career as he had been associated with various Universities including Bahria University, Hamdard University and ICMAP as visiting faculty prior to shifting to Saudi Arabia.

Association with Organization: Presently, Barkatullah Lone is associated with a reputed large Conglomerate Corporate Group in the Eastern Province of KSA (Dammam) as the Group's Chief Financial Officer. He joined this Group with a vision to professionalize the business functions and streamline the Processes by embedding the business activities into integrated Information Systems. He has ample experience in converting the traditional owner-based culture into a corporate culture in his ex-organizations and he is envisioning inculcating a corporate culture in the existing Group as well.

PAKISTAN and GULF ECONOMIST interviewed Mr. Barkatullah Lone vis-a-vis refineries. The excerpts are as follows:

There are five main oil refineries in Pakistan. BYCO Petroleum and Pak Arab Refinery (Parco) are the largest, which represent more than half of the nation's throughput capacity. The five refineries can process up to 21 million tons of crude oil annually but their total output was around 13 million tons in the last financial year. This shows that the country utilized just around 65% of its oil refining capacity in the financial year 2022.

Refineries turn crude...