April 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1429

KARACHI, April 28: The Sui Southern Gas Company is believed to have suffered huge losses due to the damage to its appliances caused by leftover debris of heavy construction material in the newly constructed 24-inch Bajra-Karachi pipeline before commissioning, sources said.

This also resulted in low pressure of the gas supplied to consumers. The debris was now travelling with the gas and damaging installations downstream, they added wondering as to why the official concerned accepted the line with impurities.

According to insiders, the problem cropped up following the commissioning of a new pipeline in July last year. As the debris and dust was not removed from it before commissioning, valves, regulators, filter separators, filter and expensive components installed at town bonder stations (TBS) worth millions of rupees have been damaged.

The standard practice is that this unwanted debris is removed from the pipeline by releasing water with high pressure to remove all impurities left inside.

This leftover debris, which also contains a sizeable percentage of iron particles, has travelled to different compressor stations. Millions of dollars worth of high-technology meters installed at factories and power stations have been damaged, said insiders, adding that it would be “impossible” for the SSGC to make “correct bills” for commercial consumers, especially causing huge revenue losses.

They said that no investigation was carried out as to why the debris was not removed before commissioning and why the contractor was paid the amount if he had not followed the specified methods of removing impurities from the pipeline before commissioning. Due to this alleged negligence on the part of the department concerned, the pipeline was also being damaged from within as these foreign elements were moving with the gas at high speed and pressure.

The matter was taken up by the DGM (measurement) on Sept 18 last year when heavy dust/carbon in the distribution system of Site, City Area, Hub and the Landhi-Korangi areas was detected.

In his memorandum, he had pointed out that due to heavy dust in the distribution system since Sept 11, 2007, low pressure complaints were received due to choking of filter elements, sticking of meters/regulators etc. At the time of writing the above-mentioned memorandum he had received 207 complaints from Site, City Area, Hub and the Landhi/Korangi areas.

He had complained that the intensity of dust was so severe that as soon as the CMS was re-commissioned, after replacement of filter elements, overhauling of regulators and cleaning of meter implements, they were instantly choked again.

Due to dust many CNG stations were also closed down whereas production activity in several factories had also stopped.

The GM (transmission) in his internal memo to GM (P&C) about the commissioning of the 24-inch Bajra-Karachi pipeline and failure of regulators had on Sept 24 last year maintained that starting from commissioning of the pipeline, the transmission department had carried out “close monitoring” of the filter separators so that the filter elements were replaced immediately as and when it became due, as indicated by different pressure indicators installed on all the five filter separators. Each time 20 to 30 kilograms of the leftover dust was recovered from filter separators every time the elements were replaced. Despite all efforts, pressure regulators at ACPL regulation and SMS KT started failing one by one. In all the cases, the valve bodies and internal parts were found heavily corroded due to the flowing sand/dust.

The SSGC refused to offer comments.