KARACHI, Oct 11: Price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has again reverted to the older higher levels. Retailers have again become active by charging old rates of Rs42-43 as compared to Rs37-38 per kg.

Producers, marketing companies and distributors are not ready to take the brunt on themselves in revealing the actual reason of price hike. A refinery official, on condition of anonymity, said that the reversal of price to previous higher level was nothing but a sheer surprise when all the producers on the instruction of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had already reduced the rates to Rs17,000 from Rs24,000 per ton.

He said that there was no justification of raising the prices on the pretext that the imported LPG had been costing more when the country's entire consumption depended on the 90 per cent production from local refineries and gas fields.

At a time when retailers were playing havoc with prices in local markets, the distributors and marketing companies were busy in Islamabad on Monday to discuss the price regulation and determining price structure for marketing companies with the officials of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA). A separate meeting of the LPG producers was also held with OGRA top officials the same day.

Sources in the meeting said that nothing concrete had come out from the meeting which mainly focussed on the long term solution. It was decided in the meeting to form a sub-committee which would find out ways and means as to what would be the price mechanism in future that could be acceptable to producers, marketing companies and distributors.

LPG Distributors and Welfare Association (LPGDWA) President Hadi Khan and Senior Vice-President Ali Haider told Dawn that the recent price hike in LPG was mainly due to the arrival of imported gas at higher rates.

It is not clear whether the LPG price had flared up only in Karachi or the consumers of other cities were getting LPG at older rates. The imported gas was currently selling at higher rates compared to the locally produced LPG, they said.

They added that LPG consumption in Karachi stood at 200-250 tons per day and the city was getting 80-90 tons a day from two refineries -- Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) and National Refinery Limited (NRL).

While a major portion of PARCO refinery's 450 tons production was being consumed in Northern parts due to rising demand in winter season. In such circumstances the dependence on imported gas was on rise in Karachi.

They defended the price hike by saying that the major chunk of the import of LPG gas is being consumed in the city. They claimed that the local production of 1,000 tons per day was certainly not enough to cope up with the rising demand arising out from the cold wave in Northern areas.

The landed price of imported gas now costs $480 per ton C&F Karachi and there is a vast difference of Rs7,000-8,000 per ton between imported and locally produced gas, they said. They urged the government to withdraw various levies and taxes on import of gas so that consumers could get cheaper gas.