March 12, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

LAHORE, March 11: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) on Tuesday suffered a deficit of over 2,500MW and was forced to resort to four-hour loadshedding throughout the country against the planned two hours.

According to a Pepco official, the reduced supply of gas put their planning out of order. "Had the company been getting the supply as promised by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) managing director, the quantum of loadshedding could have dropped to half of what the country suffered on Tuesday," the official said.

He insisted that with increased gas supplies the company could have operated Faisalabad Plant (200MW) and also increased rental power supply by another 100MW. Muzaffargarh Plant could have added another 200MW, but it was not possible because of squeezed gas supplies, he added.

Gas pressure at Kotri and Jamshoro power plants had also not been up to the mark, he said.

To make the matter worse, inflow at Tarbella Dam dropped by 8,000 cusecs in a day from 26,000 cusecs on Monday to 18,000 on Tuesday. Though inflow at Mangla Dam increased to 29,000 cusecs, its indent dropped to 23,000MW, he said.

Situation at both dams caused another reduction of over 1,000MW, thus making the matter worse for the company and people, he said and added: "The company had planned and got additional supplies (over 4,800MW) from independent power producers and from its own thermal units (over 2,900MW). It was not possible to stretch these two sources beyond what they were contributing. The only relief could have come from gas supplies, which did not happen."

The total demand on Tuesday evening surged to 12,000MW in spite of over 500MW relief brought about by conservation measures.

SNGPL Managing Director Abdur Rashid Lone however contested the Pepco version. "The company has not, and it never had, committed a certain amount of gas to Pepco, nor it was under any contract. Gas is supplied to power sector on a ‘as and when available’ basis. The SNGPL cannot cut supplies to domestic consumers and supply it to power sector. Pepco officials had explained the situation emerging after March 7, when dams were expected to hit the dead level, and the company had promised to supply whatever surplus gas it had, and it was doing so. Last week, the Pepco was getting 200 million cubic feet (Mmcf), which has now been increased to 350Mmcf. The Pepco should have build up its oil reserves rather than waiting for additional gas supplies."

It sound like a déjà vu, says Shabir Ahmad, an irritated consumer from Lahore. Once a crisis starts, the usual blame game starts among various agencies. During the next few days or a week, the bucket would stop nowhere. Agencies would blame each other and let the hapless consumers suffer. This officially declared four-hour loadshedding is in addition to the ongoing eight-hour loadshedding that is being carried out in the name of development and maintenance work. "The most vulnerable and threatened species in this country seem to be the consumers as these service providers get away with everything under the sun," Ahmad said.