Hascol Petroleum


Hascol Petroleum Limited is a Pakistani oil marketing company based in Karachi. It is majority-owned by Vitol.
Hascol holds the distribution rights of German lubricating oil Fuchs in Pakistan.

History

Hascol Petroleum was founded in 2001 by Mumtaz Hasan Khan. In 2005, it received oil marketing license from the government.
In 2014, Hascol was listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange.
International trader Vitol bought a 15 percent stake in April 2016, lifted it to 25 percent in 2017 and signalled an intention to reach 41 percent in 2019, pairing its equity with promised investment in terminals and working capital. In the same period, Hascol secured exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute Fuchs lubricants, began building a blending plant at Port Qasim and briefly became Pakistan's second-largest OMC by market share in 2017.
The growth unravelled in 2019 when mounting foreign-exchange losses and alleged "false purchase orders" forced restatement of prior-year accounts; net losses ballooned to ₨12 billion in 2019 and ₨23 billion in 2020. In July 2021 the Federal Investigation Agency opened a criminal probe into ₨54.5 billion of bank borrowings, issuing notices to nine lenders over suspected fabrication of trade-finance documents. Later, a scandal surfaced that Hascol had falsified its books and financial statements in 2019, this, coupled with mounting losses resulted in the company's share price tumbling from over in 2018 to about in 2021, and the Pakistan Stock Exchange declaring the company to be in default. The company had its assets frozen by the High Court of Sindh upon request of the company's creditors.

Operations

As of mid-2025 Hascol markets petrol, diesel, fuel oil, Jet A-1, LPG and automotive lubricants through more than 400 service stations spanning all provinces, supplied from company-owned depots and hospitality arrangements with larger OMCs.
Hascol's supply chain is anchored by bulk import facilities at Karachi’s Keamari and the 200,000-tonne Port Qasim storage terminal operated by joint-venture subsidiary Hascol Terminals, a joint venture with Vitol's global tank business . Inland, Hascol owns depots at Mahmoodkot and Daulatpur, and has pipeline access to northern areas.

Joint ventures

  • Hascol Terminals – 15 percent Hascol / 85 percent Vitol-VTTI venture that built and operates the Port Qasim oil terminal commissioned in 2019.
  • VAS LNG – an LNG marketing company incorporated in March 2017, owned 30 percent by Hascol and 70 percent by Vitol, established to trade spot cargoes and develop small-scale LNG products.
  • Hascol has historically held equity in Pakistan Refinery Limited and other downstream assets, although several holdings were pledged to banks during the 2021 debt standstill.