March 17, 2008	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

LAHORE, March 16: The LPG Distributors’ Association has announced a Rs10 per kilogramme reduction in the retail price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Monday.

The announcement was made on Sunday by Irfan Khokhar, chairman of the association, at the end of a three-day ‘Fuelling Pakistan’ exhibition organised by the Dawn Group of Newspapers at the Fortress Stadium.

Mr Khokhar said the price of a cylinder for domestic use would be reduced to Rs649 from Rs767 and that for commercial to Rs2,497 from Rs2,951 after the reduction from Rs65 to Rs55 per kg. The price would be further reduced in April, he said.

He said LPG industry suffered because people in power promoted the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and laid down tough conditions for setting up LPG filling stations. He said there had been 125 per cent increase in LPG prices since 2004.

Mr Khokhar said that $200 million had been invested in the LPG sector between 2000 and 2005 but further investment was not made because of government’s wrong policies which discouraged the use of LPG.

He said the promotion of LPG could help offset the impact of soaring oil prices.

The daily production of LPG, he said, could be raised from existing 900 metric tons to 1,650 metric tons and it could be used as a cheap alternative fuel for power generation and automobiles.

He urged the government to ensure its availability by allowing its duty-free import.

He said that at present 22.5 million vehicles were running on the LPG in the US, UK, India, Bangladesh, Australia and Pakistan. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority allowed the use of LPG for vehicles and the setting up of LPG filling stations in September 2004, but no filling station were set up during the period because of tough conditions.

He said the new government should revise the conditions so that more LPG filling stations could be set up.