السعودية ترفض الامداد النفطي المجاني
ايلاف من بيروت: نشرت صحيفة quot;Hindustan Timesquot; تقريرا حول رفض المملكة العربية السعودية طلب quot;النفط المجانيquot;:
S Arabia declines Pak request for 'free' oil
Saudi Arabia has declined Pakistan's request to resume supply of free crude oil worth two billion dollars under the Special Financing Arrangement, a Pakistani official said.
Pakistan made a well-publicised request to the Gulf nation during the recent visit of Saudi King Abdullah Bin Aziz to the country and it figured prominently in the talks with President Pervez Musharraf.
quot;But the King did not entertain such a request,quot; the official was quoted as saying in local daily 'Dawn'.
quot;The issue did come up (for discussion), but the chapter stands closed now,quot; the official said.
Considering the close ties between the two countries, Musharraf had initially requested the King during his visit to Saudi Arabia in December last to restore SFA, the paper said.
Pakistan imported about 110,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Saudi Arabia costing around two billion dollars per annum and Pakistan wanted this import under the SFA to reduce mounting pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
The request to Saudi King for SFA was made in the back drop of growing Pakistan trade deficit which has already increased by over 132 per cent to 5.6 billion dollars during first six months of the current fiscal year compared with 2.4 billion dollars of the same period last year.
Saudi Arabia had started supplied oil to Pakistan at the rate of about one billion dollar per year under the special financing arrangement commonly known as Saudi Oil Facility (SOF) in 1998, following US-led international nuclear sanctions against Pakistan.
The two countries have signed five agreements mostly on higher and technical education during the King's visit but no accord was reached on energy security.