July 16, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 19, 1427

ISLAMABAD, July 15: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday approved a range of measures to facilitate and ensure uninterrupted supply of gas to the independent power projects (IPPs).

Presiding over the meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), he approved all the recommendations made by a high-level committee as part of the Gas Supply Agreement (GSA) for addressing the IPPs specific problems.

According to the recommendations, a copy of which was made available to Dawn, it was decided that the reservoir failure risk should not be passed on to the IPPs. It should be settled between the gas producer and the gas company.

The responsibility to construct the gas pipeline should be borne by the gas company concerned and the GSA term (period) must match the term of PPA. However, the impact of the cost of alternate fuel, in case adequate gas was not available after 2011, should not be borne by the gas company.

The ECC also approved that the consequences for short supply of gas below the committed level be borne by the company concerned — cost differential of alternative fuel (HSD) should be borne by the gas company and commitments to IPPs must be honoured.