LAHORE: The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) plans to provide liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders to those consumers who often face extremely low gas pressure in the tail-end areas during winter.

The company has also identified up to one million such consumers living in several parts of Punjab as eligible for LPG cylinder provision, Dawn has learnt. An official in the petroleum division said a senior officer of the SNGPL has been tasked with carrying out the LPG supply operation.

“As this is being done in the public interest, the LPG would be provided to consumers on a no-profit, no-loss model,” the official added.

The SNGPL covers seven million consumers in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, the majority of them are domestic ones. For many years, the company has been facing a shortage of gas due to depleting indigenous gas reserves and increasing demand. The company also started importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar in a bid to meet the demand of industry, power and other sectors. Due to increasing demand, the LNG share of the total LNG supply has reportedly surged to 55 percent.

The official said before launching the LPG supply operation, the company plans to run an awareness drive for the public at large in print, electronic and social media.

He said there was a plan to provide gas to consumers during cooking hours alone if the gas shortage worsens in a severe winter. He said the company has been asked to ensure gas supplies to industry, especially the export and power sectors.

“The gas supply to the CNG sector is already closed. And it is likely to remain so in coming days,” he said. The official revealed that the LPG supply plan, to date, is in Punjab alone, as there is no gas shortage in KP.

“Under the constitution, the company is liable to ensure full supplies as per the demand of the KP, which is a major gas-producing province,” he clarified.

The company imposed a ban last year on the provision of new gas connections that not only irked consumers but also increased its backlog to around 2.8 million. The company is of the view that while there is no sufficient gas supply, how can it make new connections? The company claims to have given new connections in the last fiscal year in a bid to reduce the backlog. The delay in the finalization of the new gas tariffs for domestic consumers is also a major reason behind the ban. The reason behind rationalizing gas tariffs for domestic consumers emerged keeping in view the provision of imported LNG after regasification, which costs too much, to consumers at cheaper rates besides providing the system gas (indigenous gas). Eventually, this forced the authorities to work out a new price formula, which has almost been finalized, for domestic consumers. The backlog of 2.8 million applications for new gas connections also included those seeking gas connections under the urgent category through the deposition of a Rs25,000 fee.

In August last, the company said in a briefing that its regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) consumption has reached 55pc of the total supplies due to a massive decline in the indigenous supplies, resulting in more dependence on the RLNG. It also referred to the government’s plan to introduce the weighted average cost of gas, which, the company claimed, would mitigate and reduce the high price of RLNG for the public.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2022