‘No gas outages for industries in winter’

KARACHI: Federal Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan has said that necessary arrangements have been made to provide gas without any outages to industries during the next five months.

Addressing office-bearers of the Council of All Pakistan Textile Association (CAPTA) at the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) House on Friday, the minister said any shortfalls during winter due to high demand would be met by injecting 350 mmcfd of RLNG to maintain the gas supply in the SSGCL system between 1,350 to 1400 mmcfd,

He said the Sindh government had been requested to provide the right of way for laying high pressure gas pipelines for 17km project to overcome energy crisis and approval of the provincial cabinet is expected shortly.

For meeting the industrial gas demand, the government would provide new RLNG connections, he said, adding that emergency clause of PPRA will be invoked by the SSGC to reinforce the pipeline infrastructure in the Site industrial within two months and “I will inaugurate it on Dec 9.’

According to a CAPTA press release, Omar said the government was committed to bringing deep rooted reforms to cater the national energy requirement and increase the produce of indigenous gas through new explorations which shall likely be achieved in next five years.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar stated that the recent gas pressure problem faced by the industries of Karachi was due to maintenance of two major gas fields.

“The government is running all fields at the maximum level and existing gas reserves under utilisation are heading towards depletion and there is a dire need for new exploration,” he added.

The government in view of the situation has been providing RLNG connections to the industrial and commercial consumers both in South and North, he said.

Omar and Babar were of the view that the demand of industries to ban the domestic indigenous gas connections to provide gas to industries is debatable and requires consensus in the parliament.