Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) was incorporated as a Private Limited Company in November, 1978 to take over the business of the Attock Oil Company Limited (AOC) relating to refining of crude oil and supplying of refined petroleum products. It was subsequently converted into a Public Limited Company in June, 1979 and is listed on the three Stock Exchanges of the country. The Company is also registered with Central Depository Company of Pakistan Limited (CDC).

Original paid-up capital of the Company was Rs 80 million which was subscribed by the holding company i.e. AOC, Government of Pakistan, investment companies and general public. The present Paid-up capital of the Company is Rs. 852.93 million.

ARL is the pioneer of crude oil refining in the country with its operations dating back to 1922. Backed by a rich experience of more than 85 years of successful operations, ARL’s plants have been gradually upgraded/replaced with state-of-the-art hardware to remain competitive and meet new challenges and requirements.

It all began in February 1922, when two small stills of 2,500 barrel per day (bpd) came on stream at Morgah following the first discovery of oil at Khaur where drilling started on January 22, 1915 and at very shallow depth of 223 feet 5,000 barrels of oil flowed. After discovery of oil in Dhulian in 1937, the Refinery was expanded in late thirties and early fourties. A 5,500 bpd Lummus Two-Stage-Distillation Unit, a Dubbs Thermal Cracker, Lubricating Oil Refinery and Wax Purification facility and the Edeleanu Solvent Extraction unit for smoke-point correction of Kerosene were added.

Series of Firsts

• First refinery of the region (1922)
• First to start dispensing major products through pipeline using computerized metering system (1987)
• First to produce low sulfur furnace (less than 1%) (1998)
• First to produce low sulfur diesel (less than 0.5%) (1998)
• First to achieve ISO 9002 certification for quality control laboratory (1999)
• First to produce low lead premium gasoline direct from refinery process (1999)
• First to produce polymer modified asphalt (2001)
• First refinery/first petro-chemical plant / first major industry to get ISO 9001:2000 certificate (2001)
• First refinery / first petrochemical plant/first major industry to get ISO 14001 certificate (2002)
• First major industry to get OHSAS 18001 certification (2006).

There were subsequent discoveries of oil at Meyal and Toot (1968). Reservoir studies during the period 1970-78 further indicated high potential for crude oil production of around 20,000 bpd. In 1981, the capacity of Refinery was increased by the addition of two distillation units of 20,000 and 5,000 bpd capacity, respectively. Due to their vintage, the old units for lube/wax production, as well as Edeleanu, were closed down in 1986. In 1999, ARL commenced JP-1 pipeline despatches, and in 2000, a Captive Power Plant with installed capacity of 7.5 Megawatt was commissioned. Another expansion and upgradation project was completed in 1999 with the installation of a Heavy Crude Unit of 10,000 bpd and a Catalytic Reformer of 5,000 bpd. ARL’s current nameplate capacity stands at 42,000 bpd and it possesses the capability to process lightest to heaviest (10-65 API) crudes.