ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Masood Malik on Tuesday said the government had arranged two additional cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — one each in January and February — that would help better manage energy shortages in the coming winter peak with the support of additional imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

“It would not be free for all but the situation would be much better than last winter,” he said at his usual political news conference against former prime minister Imran Khan rather than his ministry’s issues.

At the last leg of his hurriedly called but much-delayed presser, Mr Malik said the country would have 10 and nine LNG cargoes in coming January and February compared to nine and eight in the same months of last winter, respectively.

“We are trying our best to arrange more LNG to provide as much relief to the people as possible,” he said while alleging that winter gas supply had become challenging because of the incompetence of the Imran Khan government which did not book LNG when it was available at $2 or 4 per unit which was not available now even at $40 per unit. Those cargoes of $30-40 million are now beyond $140 million and not available in the market, he said.

Mr Malik said the public sector energy companies — Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL), Pak-Arab Refinery Co (Parco) and Pakistan State Oil (PSO) had been directed by the government to arrange additional LPG imports to cope with a gas shortage in winters.

As a result, SSGCL will be importing additional 20,000 tonnes of LPG for which the required number of LPG cylinders has been arranged and is in the process to procure additional bowsers for transportation of the commodity, he said.

Under an agreement between SSGCL and SNGPL, the latter would be for the first time marketing LPG in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so that it could provide cylinders to consumers in ca se of a natural gas shortage, he added.

At the same time, he appealed to the well-off consumers to minimise their gas consumption for hot water and space heating and improve their boilers and geysers to efficient units with green energy efficiency marking. “A bit of their conservation would go a long way in easing the difficulties of the poor for cooking,” he said.

Mr Malik said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was himself working on an energy plan to be unveiled soon that would graduate the country to self-reliance and affordability in energy supply and pricing, respectively.

He said former PTI planning minister Asad Umar should be confronted who, as head of the cabinet’s energy committee, used to claim Pakistan did not require the amount of energy that had already been lined up and disallowed the purchase of LNG at $2, 4 and 6 per unit.

Responding to a question, Mr Malik said the government would not subsidise the price of additional LPG but at the same time would not allow its black marketing as well. “The mafia would be crushed if it tried to artificially increase LPG prices,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022