Domestic users to experience 16-hour gas load shedding during winter

Due to the requirement for a $37 per mmbtu subsidy, the federal government is unable to guarantee that domestic customers of both Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) will have uninterrupted access to eight hours of gas per day during cooking hours in the upcoming winters.

A parliamentary panel was informed on Thursday by Captain Muhammad Mahmood (retired), Additional Secretary (Incharge) for the Ministry of Energy’s Petroleum Division, that neither the government nor the gas firms had the resources to severely subsidise the domestic gas consumers. The secretary said, “We can’t supply gas at $3 per MMBtu against a current purchase of $40 per MMBtu.”

He made it clear that every effort will be taken to guarantee household gas supply for three hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and three hours in the evening.

In response to a query, he stated that the Sindh gas load-shedding was a result of the allocation of gas between home and industrial uses. He claimed that in Sindh, 60 per cent of gas was delivered to industry and the remaining 40 per cent to homes and other sectors, in contrast to KP where 80 per cent of gas was supplied to domestic users.

Imran Maniar, the managing director (MD) of SSGC, informed the committee that Balochistan contributed 110 mmcfd while Sindh produced 740 mmcfd.

He claimed that due to the 10 per cent annual depletion of domestic gas reserves and the 100 per cent dependency on imported gas in ten years, there will be no gas in the upcoming winter.

He stated that it was anticipated that in three to four years, LNG prices would decline significantly and the government would be able to finish building the new LNG facilities as planned.

Due to the high expense of security and the country’s continued political unrest, new corporations were not expressing interest in oil and gas exploration. “The investors are waiting as they would not invest when new general election will be held next year,” he said.

He added that due to sanctions, the anticipated import of gas from Russia or Iran was not feasible.

In response to a question, the secretary stated that the cost of storing gas in the nation was high and that industrialised nations lacked such facilities; nonetheless, during recent gas crises, Germany and England began developing gas storage facilities.

The previous administration authorised a draught of a new Pakistan Upstream Regulatory Authority to separate policy from regulation, according to Director General (DG) PC, Petroleum Division Kashif Ahmed.

Provinces disagreed with a few of the proposed regulatory authority’s provisions, though. He stated that the authority would have four members from four different provinces and one vice chairman. “After getting approval from the competent forum, it will take three to four years for the establishment of the regulator for the upstream sector,” he added.