LAHORE: Due to extreme weather, shortfall of the Sui Northern Gas Pipe Lines Company (SNGPL) has reached 1,600 million cubic feet (mmcfd) and the situation worsened further on Saturday after a fire broke out at Sui plant, causing another 240mmcfd dent in supplies.

Addressing a press conference, SNGPLManaging Director Arif Hamid said the fire destroyed a boiler and 16-inch pipeline, adding to the problems of the company. He also appealed to the people to reduce usage of heaters and geysers to save the company and themselves from further complications.

He said the company had suspended supplies to the textile industry in order to provide uninterrupted supplies to domestic consumers; only plants on the dedicated lines were getting gas supplies. The current demand was around 3,000mmcfd, whereas the company was getting only 1,430mmcfd.

With the repair of the 16-inch pipeline by Sunday, the situation would ease a bit. The compression engineers of the company were already on the site and were working along with the engineers of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited and SSGC.

About low pressure, the MD said gas demand by consumers of Punjab was 900mmcfd against a total supply of 530mmcfd. The shortfall had increased due to extreme weather conditions, he said and warned: “The shortfall may increase in January due to further drop in temperatures.

He said the areas of Gulberg, Model Town, Defence, Ichhra, Shadman and Samanabad were mostly affected by low pressure because they were away from the main pipeline.

Teams were being formed to raid premises using compressors and they would start their work on Sunday (today).

He said connections of the consumers would be disconnected which would not be restored before one week.

Arif Hamid while talking about the new gas explorations said 30 million cubic feet of gas would be available from Zargoon field by June 2015 in the network of SSGC and later to the network of SNGPL, which would allow further expansion.

He also hoped that 400 million cubic feet of LNG would be imported in March 2015 out of which 270 million cubic feet would be added to SNGPL network.

Published in Dawn December 21th , 2014