ISLAMABAD: Pakistan ranks 29th among the countries holding natural gas reserves.

This was revealed in the findings of a gas monitor report presented by Dr Amanullah Mahar, Director Center for Environmental Sciences, University of Sindh, Jamshoro.

He said total extractable potential is reported around 24 TCFT, however, 4 billion cubic feet (BCFT) is the daily gas production.

He said Sindh had 124 gas fields and accounts for 63pc. The biggest field of natural gas is in the Sui region of Balochistan accounting for 6pc. Country has proven reserves equivalent to 12 times its annual consumption.

This means it has about 12 years of gas left. As Pakistan is facing severe natural gas shortage for the last couple of years, it has started relying heavily on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), however, the government needs to explore other energy sources to save the environment as well as financial spending on the LNG import.

According to a statement, the alarming situation for the country is that the supply of natural gas is declining day by day from domestic sources as the consumer need is continuously increasing. Since last decade the consumption of natural gas has increased resulting in the import of LNG.

The biggest consumer of natural gas is the power sector followed by residential. There are some gas losses between 11pc and 14pc due to theft and other reasons, he said.

Initially, LNG was introduced to meet the supply gap but now it has a share of 25pc of gas supply for LNG power plants in Pakistan. The spot prices have affected the purchasing strategy of LNG which is left up to 40pc of supply, said by Dr Mahar while presenting his findings of the report.

He said: “LNG is a very high carbon intensive fuel and cannot be called “transition” fuel source to a cleaner energy system. Fossil gas (methane) can be leaked from the regasification, transport, and consumption and processing of it.

After carbon dioxide (CO2), methane is the second most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas and responsible for 20pc of worldwide atmospheric emissions.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2022