KARACHI, April 4: The Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd will increase the gas load for Karachi to 1.2 bcf by 2010.

The company provides nearly 800 mmcfd of gas to Karachi, making the city Pakistan’s biggest load centre, greater than Lahore, Gujranwala and Faisalabad.

Giving a presentation to the members of the Senate Functional Committee for Less Developed Areas in the company head office on Friday, SSGC managing director Azim Iqbal Siddiqui said in order to ensure an efficient and uninterrupted supply of gas, the company was putting together a system by placing additional lines.

He said that as part of the gas infrastructure and rehabilitation projects in Balochistan, a gas sales agreement was signed with Mari Gas Company in 2006 to receive 22 mmcfd of gas from Zarghun South Gas Field whereby the SSGC will construct a 64 km, 12” dia pipeline from the field to the Quetta pipeline transmission network.

The project would be completed by December 2008.

The company was laying down several other important pipelines, including 18” dia, 18-km Abegum, Mach loop-line and 18” dia 53-km Dhadher

Abb-e-gum line, all of which will collectively benefit the domestic customers in Balochistan, the SSGC chief added.

In 2006-07, the SSGC supplied gas to 210 towns and villages, of which 90 destinations were covered in Balochistan and 110 in Sindh. It was a far cry from the situation that existed in 2000 when not a single town or village in Balochistan had gas connections.

Mr Siddiqui, however, said that in certain areas of Balochistan, the company has not been able to provide gas because the population was hugely dispersed. In such areas the SSGC had proposed LPG air-mix whereby LPG could be transported through a satellite system.

Senator Mir Wali M. Badani, who led the committee, identified certain areas of Balochistan such as Noshki and Loralai, where gas supply had not yet reached.