Petroleum Ministry on Friday warned stakeholders that any defying of mutually agreed gas load management plan would be considered a violation of Gas Theft Act 2011, and would be punished as per law. Minister for Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain chaired a meeting of stakeholders to finalise distribution of natural gas among CNG, industrial, fertiliser and domestic sectors. The meeting was attended by representatives of APTMA, APCNGA, fertiliser sector officials of SSGCL, SNGPL, OGRA and ministries of industries, food security and petroleum. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Dr Asim said the country will witness an extreme shortfall of 1.1 billion cubic feet per day in gas supplies from January onwards till March next year. SNGPL and SSGCL were also directed to finalise LPG bottling and marketing within 30 days to facilitate domestic consumers during gas shortage. He said the provision of the gas to the domestic consumers is the top priority of the government. The government had earlier finalised a gas load management plan for November, but it could not be implemented as Prime Minister directed the petroleum ministry to divert more gas supply to the fertiliser sector, to bridge the rising urea shortages which could affect production of the country’s main food crop, wheat. He said extreme shortage of gas will be more than 750 mmcfd on SNGPL network and 250 mmcfd on SSGCL network. Gas supply to all the four fertiliser plants and power plants on SNGPL, was being disconnected immediately to meet the rising domestic demand.
