LAHORE - Severe shortage of gas in the domestic sector continued on consecutive third day on Tuesday amid the hope given by SNGPL that the situation would improve within next 24 hours.
“We are the distributors. The issue is not at out end,” said SNGPL MD Arif Hameed while talking to the journalists after a capacity building workshop at the company’s training institute.
Arif added that the domestic pressure decreased suddenly due to rupture of a 16-inch pipeline at Sui plant which added some 260 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) additional shortfall in company’s network. He explained that the SNGPL had been providing assistance for the maintenance of the PPL’s pipeline in Sui. The work was in progress and the situation would become better within a day or so, he hoped.
Besides Punjab, Quetta was also affected due the fault in the Sui plant, informed the company chief who also thanked the consumers for their support and appealed them for efficient use of gas at their homes.
The media affairs department of the SNGPL had arranged the workshop for the capacity building of the journalists covering the company affairs for the newspapers and electronic media.
Arif Hameed informed that the representatives of Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan were meeting in Islamabad in February next year to discuss TAPI gas pipe line project. He held that the work on Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline (at Pakistani side) would also be started soon. He said that current gas crisis was temporary. He said that Engro completed LNG terminal in Karachi which would be helpful to add some 400 MMCFD gas in the network from March 2014. The construction of four other LNG terminals was also under consideration, he added.
“UFG reduced by 1.6 per cent current year as compared to the previous year,” he replied while answering a question.
The MD announced that although 1.5 million applications of gas connections were pending, the company would provide 300,000 new connections. He also said that company had also requested Ogra to give them permission for establishing 13 new regions. The reason behind establishing the regions was to facilitate the customers, he added.
SNGPL GM Zia Mahmood briefed the media about the gas situation in Lahore. He said that provision of uninterrupted gas supply to the consumers was their first priority.
Meanwhile, the severe shortage of gas continued at domestic sectors with reports of protests in various cities of the province including Lahore. The prices of LPG, on the other side, increased further by Rs20 per kg in some areas of the City. The LPG is being sold at Rs200 per keg due to monopoly of marketing companies. The ogra rates are 50 per cent less than the price being charged by the companies, said All Pakistan LPG Distributor Association Punjab chapter president Attique Khan.
He requested the government to take notice of the marketing companies’ overcharging from the poor consumers.