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KARACHI: Pakistan’s largest oil refiner, Cnergyico PK Limited, is mulling more imports of crude oil from the United States (US), the company’s vice chairman said on Monday, as a second vessel carrying one million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) arrived in the South Asian country.

The official said the arrival of WTI light crude through the vessel, MT Albani, brought the company’s total imports from the US via Vitol to 2 million barrels so far.

Cnergyico received Pakistan’s first ever US oil shipment on Oct. 30 in Karachi while a third cargo of about the same volume is expected in January next year.

“Additional cargoes for the second half of January and February are currently under evaluation,” Cnergyico Vice Chairman Usama Qureshi told Arab News, adding that crude procurement planning is typically done months in advance.

Cnergyico operates Pakistan’s largest refinery with 156,000 barrels per day capacity and struck the current deal with Vitol after Islamabad finalized a new trade arrangement with Washington in July that helped the cash-strapped country avoid 29 percent reciprocal tariffs President Donald Trump had initially proposed on its imports.

US is the biggest buyer of Pakistan’s exports, especially textiles.

The import plan is expected to help Pakistan diversify its crude sourcing and is being seen as part of Islamabad’s efforts to reduce its approximately $3 billion trade surplus with Washington, in line with Trump’s policy.

Qureshi said the two shipments Cnergyico has imported so far are valued at $150 million, which would further narrow the trade deficit.

The South Asian nation has so far relied on Gulf suppliers, particularly the United Arab Emirates and ��������, to meet its energy needs and imported petroleum products worth $16 billion last year, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data.

With crude oil topping its list of imports from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Pakistan’s trade deficit with the six-nation bloc narrowed four percent to $3.84 billion in the July-September quarter of current fiscal year, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Shankar Talreja, head of research at the Karachi-based Topline Securities brokerage research firm, linked the narrowing of trade gap to a decrease in international oil prices by more than 13 percent from July till September, and Pakistan’s deferment of re-gasified liquified natural gas imports from Qatar in recent months.

Pakistan’s overall imports, mostly oil, from GCC suppliers dropped by 5 percent to $4.61 billion during July-September, according to the SBP data.

The country’s imports dropped by 17 percent to $884 million from ��������, by 12 percent to $781.3 million from Qatar and by 31 percent to $369.8 million from Kuwait. Pakistan’s imports from its biggest crude supplier, the UAE, rose by 2.5 percent to $2.16 billion.

While Qureshi denied linking Pakistan’s lower imports from Gulf region to his company’s increasing imports of the American crude, an industry official privy to the matter said Islamabad was buying WTI crude because of higher premiums the Gulf suppliers had been charging in recent months.

“Their (GCC) crude premiums have been higher for a few months, which makes US crude an attractive option,” said the official, seeking anonymity as he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly. He did not share any numbers to support his claim about higher premiums.

Asked if Pakistan’s increasing US crude oil imports could weigh on the country’s trade with the Gulf, the official said there would be “no significant impact.”

“Pakistan’s trade balance with Gulf countries is already relatively stable, and those economies have large, diversified export markets,” he said. “It doesn’t materially alter overall trade dynamics.”