LAHORE: As the distribution companies (Discos) continue to observe loadshedding for hours on a daily basis, official sources say the situation will improve after Jan 10 when the power plants will start receiving Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG).

“At present there is no LNG for the plants. However, it will be available to plants after arrival of the ship carrying LNG at Port Qasim (Karachi) probably on Jan 10 or 11,” a senior official told Dawn on Monday.

The official said due to non-availability of LNG, the plants including Balloki, Bhikki, Hallmore, Saif, Saphire, Fauji, Rosche and Kapco (nine units) are closed.

Only Haveli Bahadur Shah and Orient plants are operational since they are receiving indigenous gas (over 120MMCFD) from the SNGPL’s system. “120MMCFD is half of the total supply to Haveli and Orient plants. It means that these plants are generating power half of their total capacity,” he added. He said besides these some plants including Uch (1, 2) and Guddu-747 were being provided with local gas directly from [gas] fields.

He said since the hydel generation had already been squeezed to a couple of 100 megawatts due to low flow season, the generation being added to the national grid was either from some furnace or local gas-fired plants. “At present the total demand ranges between 10,000 and 11,000MW. And the generation is just 7,000MW or so. So there is shortfall of 3,000 to 4,000MW in the system, forcing the Discos to observe load shedding,” he added.

On the other hand, the Discos continue to observe loadshedding for hours in the areas of all categories of high-loss feeders.

“Since the allocated power quota of our company has been squeezed due to shortfall, we are observing loadshedding for two to eight hours in the areas of all high-loss feeders falling under category 1 to 5,” said another official.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2019