KARACHI: Apropos a report headlined `Fuel shortage hits GB` appearing in Dawn on July 12, the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has said none of its petrol stations in GilgitBaltistan faced fuel shortage during the Eid holidays and the recent high tourism season.

According to the PSO, during the Eid holidays, the northern areas, including Gilgit-Baltistan, witnessed increased fuel demand because of influx of tourists. The PSO had anticipated the spike in demand and maintained adequate reserves to meet needs of its customers.

But due to heightened fuel demand in Gilgit-Baltistan and shortage at petrol pumps of other oil marketing companies, the customer load shifted to those of the PSO. This can be gauged by the fact that during the first 10 days of July, PSO`s average daily sales were approximately 77 kilo litre (KL) but on July 11, the sales jumped to 175KL.

Gilgit is supplied fuel from the PSO`s Juglot depot but due to increased demand, the PSO has started providing it additional supplies from its installations in Sihala and Fagirabad. At present, the PSO has reserves of five days in place for GilgitBaltistan.