ISLAMABAD: While the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has taken notice of supply of natural gas to inefficient captive power plants (CPPs), the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources is considering a request by the industrial sector, particularly the fertiliser industry, to stop gas supply to transport sector.

A government official told Dawn on Friday a crucial meeting of all major stakeholders of the gas sector has been convened by minister for petroleum and natural resources in Lahore to consider further reduction in supply to compressed natural gas (CNG) dispensing stations.

Representatives of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association, Fertiliser Manufacturers Pakistan Advisory Council, Pakistan Hosiery Association and All Pakistan CNG Association have been invited to the meeting.

The sources said the proposal to stop gas supply to CNG stations followed a strong protest by a Karachi-based businessman and shareholder in the Fatima Fertiliser, Arif Habib, who asked why the fertiliser sector was not getting its full share of supplies when it was high on the priority list formulated by the authorities for gas load management. Under this plan the fertiliser industry is the most important after the domestic and commercial and power sectors.

For over a year now, most fertiliser plants have been running at sub-optimal levels because of gas shortage, resulting in losses to these companies. Apart from the fertiliser industry, the industrial sector, particularly the textile sector, has now moved a fresh request to stop gas supply to the CNG sector because it is last on the priority list.

The Ministry for Water and Power, the NAB and the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) are of the unanimous view that maximum gas should be supplied to the major power plants in order to reduce cost of electricity generation, decrease duration of loadshedding and cut circular debt.

But a bone of contention among various gas consumers has been the rapid changes made in the priority order by the petroleum ministry in violation of the decisions of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the federal cabinet.

The NAB has insisted that power plants of the Wapda and big independent producers should get priority over the CPPs not only on the basis of the load management formula but also because of their cheaper production cost and better efficiency.

Under a gas supply criteria of gas utilities, natural gas should not be provided to the CPPs having less than 50 per cent efficiency.

At a meeting early this week, the NAB chairman strongly criticised gas companies and the petroleum ministry for allowing provision of gas to the CPPs even though most of them were running at less than 20 per cent efficiency and thus wasting an invaluable resource at a time when more productive gas consumers were facing shortages.

In some cases, the CPPs are producing electricity without licence and even selling electricity to distribution companies of Wapda at higher rates without even consuming power at their own industrial units while efficient power plants having over 60 per cent efficiency have been closed down due to non-provision of natural gas.