ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has reduced prescribed natural gas price for the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and raised it for the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).

Ogra forwarded the decision to the ministry of petroleum on Saturday and sought its permission for notifying the new prices. If approved, the decision would be enforced from July 1.

The federal ministry is legally bound to respond within 40 days, otherwise Ogra will implement the decision on its own. Meanwhile, the decision is likely to be scrutinised by the next government.

An Ogra official told Dawn that the decision was taken after holding public hearings in different cities. “It was decided after technical analysis that the gas price for the SSGC (Sindh and Balochistan) be reduced by Rs12.12 per mmbtu,” he said. The SSGC had requested for a hike of Rs32 per mmbtu (Million British Thermal Unit). Ogra allowed the SNGPL (Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) a price hike of Rs8.72 per mmbtu. It had sought an increase of Rs53 per mmbtu.

“During the hearings, consumers lodged several complaints and demanded that the gas companies should not be allowed to raise prices,” the official said.

Ogra said it had disallowed the companies to put a burden of Rs14 billion on the consumers on account of gas theft.

The regulator also disallowed the gas companies to recover Rs10bn from consumers to launch different Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) projects.

“The previous government had initiated different [and] controversial LPG air mix projects and the companies started charging the consumers under various heads to finance them,” the official said. A single project of 50mmcfd capacity could increase cost of natural gas for all consumers (except for the domestic ones) by 10 per cent.

Ogra also reduced ceiling of Unaccounted for Gas (UFG) to 4.5 per cent.