The Cabinet rejects gas load management programme proposed by Ministry of Petroleum

The Cabinet rejects gas load management programme proposed by Ministry of Petroleum

On Thursday, December 8 the Cabinet rejected the gas load management programme proposed by Ministry of Petroleum. As per the proposed programme, load shedding will be exhibited in Punjab and Sindh while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P)
and Baluchistan are to be excluded on account of constitutional constraints.

Reliable sources revealed that “The Ministry of Petroleum is under pressure to implement a load management plan – due to stay orders and gas supply to fertiliser sector on preferential basis – some ministers termed the load management
plan as half-baked in the cabinet meeting.” Ijaz Chaudhry, Secretary Petroleum, confirmed the news.

As per constitutional constraints, the government cannot cut supply to provinces that produce gas, Sindh, Baluchistan and K-P, only Punjab will be facing the highest share of gas load shedding.

The Ministry of Petroleum had also submitted a gas load management plan for Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), which was also rejected.

Ministry of Petroleum enlightened the cabinet that SNGPL had no plans to exercise gas load management in K-P in view of the orders of the Peshawar High Court. However, the ministry said, SSGC intends to oversee gas load shedding
in Sindh despite a similar order of Sindh High Court to stick to article -158 of the constitution of Pakistan.

The Cabinet was requested to endorse the gas supply of 180 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) gas to four fertiliser plants till December 31, in order to lessen urea shortage.

The Ministry of Petroleum had also proposed to continue normal gas supply to domestic and commercial sectors and continue the 3-day weekly holiday CNG stations. However, CNG stations located in Islamabad were to be exempted from
gas holidays.

The cabinet in response to this ordered the Ministry of Petroleum to prepare a revised gas load management plan and take all stakeholders on board and then resubmit it for their authorization.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=5997

Posted by Wajahat Javed on Dec 13 2011. Filed under Business, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry