LAHORE, Dec 21: Petroleum adviser Dr Asim Husain has agreed on a proposal to divide gas available for Punjab’s textile factories into daily installments of six hours over six days a week.

He will announce the new schedule during his visit to Lahore and Faisalabad on Saturday (today), which will remain effective until the end of February.

The SNGPL had suspended gas supply to Punjab’s textile industry indefinitely earlier this week due to increasing domestic demand. It later agreed to restore supply for 36 hours a week on the adviser’s intervention after his meeting with an Aptma delegation led by its former chairman, Gohar Ejaz.

“At the meeting, the adviser asked Mr Gohar to come up with a formula for limiting gas supply to the industry in such a way that its shortages have minimal impact on production and exports,” Aptma Chairman Ahsan Bashir told Dawn on Friday.

In response, he added, Gohar suggested division of gas supply into six-hour daily instalments between 5pm and 11pm when Pepco suspended power supply to the factories.

Bashir said the textile industry had to shut down production during peak hours due to simultaneous suspension of power and gas supply. He said over 70 per cent of captive power plants of the textile industry were powered by gas.

He said further the processing industry would also receive gas six hours a day or 25 per cent of its sanctioned load. He said the entire textile industry after this arrangement would be consuming 75mmcfd gas instead of its sanctioned load of 300mmcfd.Aptma Punjab Chairman Shahzad Ali Khan said this arrangement would serve 85 per cent of the textile industry in the province, adding the remaining 15 per cent did not have captive generation and depended on Pepco supplies.

He hoped Pepco authorities would follow the Petroleum Ministry and exempt such factories from power outages.