August 29, 2008	Friday	Sha'aban 26, 1429

KARACHI/LAHORE, Aug 28: Prolonged power loadshedding continued to torment Karachi on Thursday, with most areas in the country’s business and industrial hub facing supply disruptions.

Representatives of trade and industry stressed the need for ensuring uninterrupted supply to the industry to maintain production and meet export orders.

There was a shortage of 600 MW in the city and the loadshedding left consumers with hardly 9 to 10 hours of supply.

The Bin Qasim thermal plant of the KESC could not produce beyond 670 MWs over the past 24 hours. There has been no generation from the Defence Cogen plant, Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, and Korangi gas turbines. One unit of the Korangi thermal plant of the KESC has been dysfunctional for a couple of days while other gnerartions units of Korangi have been giving 80 MWs of electricity instead of the 160 MWs.

In Lahore, the Pakistan Electric Power Company announced that the ‘forced’ loadshedding would be discontinued from Thursday night after re-induction of 700MW of electricity to the national grid following partial restoration of gas supply to thermal power plants.

A Pepco spokesman said that the damaged pipelines supplyiong gas to the SNGPL system from Zamzama and Pirkoh had been repaired on Wednesday night and supply of gas to the plants was expected to resume by Thursday night.

The pipelines were blown up four days ago, suspending gas supply to Kapco, Muzaffargarh, Faisalabad and rental facilities at Sheikhpura and Bhikki near Lahore. It caused a 1300MW shortfall in power supply, necessitating the forced loadshedding.

The spokesman, however, said that the normal loadshedding of six hours in urban areas and eight hours in rural areas would continue despite full restoration of gas supply.