Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has maintained that duration of load shedding has been increased in some residential and commercial areas of the city due to `shortage of fuel supply to power generation plants, and `non-supply of power from KANUPP and other independent power plants’. In a statement KESC appealed to Dr Asim Hussain, Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, to prevent an `impending power crisis in Karachi’. Underlining reasons causing drop in power generation, KESC claimed supply of natural gas to the utility’s production plants had suddenly been reduced by SSGC. This has caused Bin Qasim, SITE and Korangi power plants to trip and hence power production had dropped.
On the other hand, furnace oil was made non-available to independent power plants forcing them to halt supply power to KESC. Thirdly, the 80-MW KANUPP has not been providing electricity to KESC for over a month due to technical faults. Under these circumstances, load shedding hours in certain residential and commercial areas had increased. The utility would be constrained to further expand circle of enhanced load shedding hours and include usually exempted industrial areas into load shedding schedule in case fuel shortage continued. The utility was in contact with SSGC and relevant quarters to get fuel supply restored. Load shedding duration would be brought back to normalcy once efforts to restore fuel supply succeeded, KESC said.
