LAHORE, April 19: Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Chaudhry Naurez Shakoor has said the government will soon convene a two-day conference for a discussion on measures for the protection of gas pipelines in Balochiatsn.

He told newsmen after the general body meeting of the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Employees Union at the SNGPL regional office here on Monday that all stakeholders, including oil and gas exploration and distribution companies, provincial and federal government and political parties would be invited to the conference.

About the Pakistan-Turkmenistan and Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline projects, he said feasibility work was going on these projects in addition to laying of offshore Qatar gas pipeline project. About the joining of Pak-Iran gas pipeline project by India, he said that India could join this project at any stage.

He said the government had decided to run the oil and gas organizations on commercial lines and participate in the tenders for international projects. The employees of these organizations would be made partners in profit and loss of such projects.

He said the power tariff cut promised by the government had been made possible due to shifting of power generation from furnace oil to gas. The government had the option to cut the gas and power tariff and it opted for the latter.

The government had also decided to grant new gas connections in Lahore and other big cities in principle to clear the backlog. Gas was expected to reach the places where even the power supply did not exist.

Mr Shakoor was all praise for the SNGPL workers and said development targets during the past three years could be achieved due to their hard work. He said he was happy that the SNGPL Employees Union believed in resolving the industrial disputes through a dialogue instead of resorting to agitation and strikes. He said he had referred the union demand for bonus to the SNGPL Board of Directors after talking to the chairman and the managing director.

SNGPL managing director Abdul Rashid Lone said the company had expanded its network during the past three years after acquiring gas supplies from a number of new sources found in Sindh and Balochiatsn.

The company was the first to contact the explorers for distribution wherever new gas reserves were found. It had completed the network expansion project in two years at a cost of Rs9.5 billion from its own resources against the estimated Rs12.5 billion without the World Bank assistance.

He said the company had been able to increase its gas sales by 50 per cent last year after acquiring supplies from new fields. It would be increasing the gas sales from 1,050 million cubic feet to 1,550 million cubic feet this year which would increase the government's earning and shareholders' profit from Rs300 million to Rs2.3 billion.

He said the company was executing over Rs150 billion projects entrusted to it by the prime minister. As many as 66 schemes were being completed under the prime minister's directives and 100 under the Tameer-i-Watan Programme.

It had increased its pipeline laying capacity from 1,200 kilometre per annum to 2,100 kilometre per annum and signed an MOU for laying the gas distribution network with a UAE group. A joint venture was being established for starting the work on the project in six months.

He said the import of furnace oil for power generation had been discontinued. The power sector was being supplied 560 million cubic feet of gas and the country was saving an average $80 million per month on this account.

He said the government had allowed the company to give 100,000 new connections for clearing the backlog in view of availability of increased supplies from the new fields.

Lahore Region SNGPL general manager Mujahid Anwar, SNGPL Employees Union president Zulfiqar Afghani and secretary general Akhtar Ali Dar also spoke on the occasion.