LAHORE: With a sudden dip in temperature, the people are facing gas brownouts in Lahore, especially those at the tail end of pipelines.

“You cannot imagine the situation we have been passing through because of extremely low gas pressure for the last many days,” Ikram, of Township, told Dawn on Thursday.

People in Gulberg, Garden Town, Faisal Town, Shalamar, Kotli Peer Abdul Rehman, Sahowari, Mughalpura, Muslim Town, Green Town and Samanabad are also facing low gas pressure.

“Cooking timings are tough for us because of the absence of gas. So, we’ve arranged LPG cylinders,” Saleem, of Kotli Peer Abdul Rehman, said.

Sources in the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) said there was a shortfall of 250 to 300 MMCFD of gas in Punjab’s domestic sector.

“Actually, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) receive 1,100 to 1,200MMCFD indigenous gas, and of them, 400MMCFD is consumed in the KP and about 750MMCFD is left for Punjab. In the winter, Punjab’s consumption mostly crosses 1,100MMCFD. At present, Punjab domestic sector’s demand is 950MMCFD,” an official explained. He said that in Punjab the gas shortfall for domestic sector had crossed 250MMCFD.

According to SNGPL Managing Director Amjad Lateef, shortfall in the domestic sector ranged between 100 to 200MMCFD.

“In Lahore and other mega cities, the people receiving gas at the tail end are in trouble, as they are facing low gas pressure. But we are not observing loadshedding even for a minute in any area, as we are trying hard to give gas to the domestic sector on top priority,” he added.

He said the company had already curtailed gas supply to the industry and asked industrialists to use regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG). At present the SNGPL is receiving around 2,000MMCFD for Punjab and the KP that includes 1,400MMCFD of indigenous gas and 600MMCFD of RLNG. To improve the gas pressure, the company has even diverted 150 to 200MMCFD of RLNG from the total 600MMCFD to the domestic sector of Punjab. The remaining 400 to 450MMCFD of the RLNG is being distributed among industries, CNG and power sectors.

“The situation would improve very soon, as the company might start receiving additional 600MMCFD RLNG from the newly constructed LNG terminal from December 16.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2017