ISLAMABAD – Perturbed by the consistent gas shortage in Punjab, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has convened a meeting of gas utility companies tomorrow (Wednesday) to ask them about their load management plans.
Sources at the Petroleum Ministry said the managing directors of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) would brief the PM on the issue of gas shortage in Punjab and would give recommendations to counter them.
The sources said the SNGPL and the Petroleum Ministry were of the opinion that the gas shortage for domestic consumers in Punjab could not be overcome until the industrial sector supplies were not limited to their contract of nine months of supply. Pakistan’s domestic gas supplies are estimated at 4BCFD while the domestic requirements are estimated at 4.8BCFD.
The refusal of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and industrialists to accept a cut-off of supply for three months
was compounding the crisis, the sources said, adding that Gilani would be requested to convince the Punjab chief minister on the issue.
After giving a cut-off notice for 36 hours on Sunday that was rejected by the provincial government, the SNGPL was forced to restore gas supply on Monday to the industrial and CNG sector in Punjab, even though the company’s distribution system was still facing 600MMCFD of gas shortfall, the sources added.
They said blasts in the Sui gas field have further increased the SNGPL’s woes whose transmission system extends from Sui in Balochistan to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The company has more than 3.4 million consumers, but the gas outage is only occurring in Punjab.
Nearly 70 percent of the gas output is provided by Sindh, and the remaining from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The three smaller provinces have steered clear of gas load shedding, but Punjab’s troubles have increased in the freezing cold weather across the province.
Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar would be meeting the CNG association today (Tuesday) to take them into confidence over the gas shortages and efforts to resolve the crisis.
The All Pakistan CNG Association is of the view that the gas woes of domestic users had compounded, as SNGPL was illegally providing 400MMCFD gas to industrial units in Punjab against their demand of 675MMCFD.
It said the industries were required to switch to alternate fuel, furnace oil, during the three-month winter season.
PM convening meeting on Punjab gas shortage tomorrow
