With the advent of winter season, demand for natural gas increases substantially in overall Sindh and Karachi. Last year, in the entire Sindh demand was 1,300 mmcfd that has risen to 1,450 mmcfd this year, hence resulting in a shortfall of 150 mmcfd. Similarly, demand for gas in Karachi has increased from 800 mmcfd to 900 mmcfd causing a gap of 100 mmcfd.
Since the last couple of weeks, the company has been receiving complaints of low gas supply and pressure from domestic customers residing in Old City Area, Lyari, Kharadar, DHA, Clifton and II Chundrigar. At the same time, industrial units and especially those located at the tail end of SITE Industrial Area have been complaining of low pressure.
It must be understood that low pressure is a normal phenomenon in winter seasons but in order to alleviate the suffering from the customers, the company has been implementing the ECC approved ‘gas load management plan’ in the across-the-board distribution of gas. The rationalisation gives first preference to the domestic customers followed by industrial, commercial and CNG sectors. The company is practically implementing the load management plan by suspending gas supplies to industrial units every Sunday and closing down supplies to CNG outlets at least three days a week. These steps help in building the line pack situation necessary to maintain gas pressure for the rest of the week.
On the distribution front, in order to reverse the situation, the SSGC has been undertaking projects to rehabilitate the aging network and also carrying out underground and overhead gas leakage survey and rectification across Sindh and Karachi. Moreover, the rising trend of gas theft, which has contributed to Unaccounted for Gas (UFG) or line losses in the province have resulted in severe gas shortage. In order to combat rising UFG volumes, the company has been implementing pipeline rehabilitation schemes and conducting regular anti-gas theft raids in areas where theft is rampant.
A number of projects are planned in the coming future that includes pipeline expansion from Kathore to Surjani Town in Karachi to increase system capacity of the en-route areas including the tail-end of SITE area. At the same time, the company is planning to increase system capacity of the industrial network between Korangi and Landhi through pipeline expansion. Another project which is planned to be carried out soon is the pipeline expansion from DHA Desalination Plant up to Clifton’s Dolmen Mall in order to increase the system pressure of the tail end customers.
