"The company has not yet decided on a location and we cannot yet say how long it will take to be completed," said a company spokesman who confirmed the news. The total capacity of the five refineries in the country is around 11 million tons per year against the total requirement of 18.5 million tones of refined oil per year, said Mohammad Sohail, head of research at Invest capital and securities, a local brokerage house. "If the PSO successfully establishes this refinery, there would be no need to import any refined oil in the country," he said, according to Daily Times. Mr. Kirmani told his employees that the management has taken the decision to set up an oil refinery in the country because of its bulk quantity requirements, which can only be fulfilled through an owned refinery. "The refinery can ensure availability of products all the time," he said. Announcing the strategy, he said "we will move fast and meet the country's requirements with lot of savings in foreign exchange on imports of finished product." However, sources in PSO said the officials are still finalizing the strategy to build what will become the biggest refinery in the country. The sources said that the refinery would have an annual capacity of 7.6 million tones which is currently being imported to meet the requirements of refined oil in the country. The Privatization Commission is to announce the date for the privatization of PSO in the next two to three weeks and in this connection, three bidders, Kuwait Petroleum, Fauji Foundation and Saudi Mid-rock have submitted bids to buy a 51 percent stake in PSO. "I do not know what they are thinking but the refinery would take three to four years time to commence operations," said one analyst who asked not to be named. Recounting the recognition PSO had received during the last financial year that ended June 30, 2003, the MD said "the company had become a member of World Economic Forum while the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania and top management expert Professor Roderick Martin had sought to conduct separately case studies of PSO's turnaround." He said the company had ended the financial year "with flying colors." He said that as far as white oil products were concerned, the industry had grown by 2.4 percent while the company had achieved a growth of 5.8 percent and its market share is on the rise. He said that as far as black oil products were concerned, PSO had a monopoly which has now ended. "This is because of deregulation, increased availability of gas to IPPs, availability of hydel power and less fuel off-take by Hubco and other power projects," he said. Kirmani said that during the last financial year PSO had won contracts from Pakistan Railways, the military and Pakistan Steel Mills and this "was an extra-ordinary achievement." Regarding the financial results, the managing director said that last year, PSO broke records. "This year we will also be doing extremely well," he said.