LAHORE, Aug 26: The severe power shortage in the country surged to over 4,500 megawatts when saboteurs blew up gas pipelines, causing suspension of supplies from Zamzama and Pir Koh to some power plants and forcing Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to undertake ‘unannounced’ loadshedding.

According to Pepco officials, the crisis hit the 1,326MW Muzaffargarh Power House, which on Tuesday was producing only 550MW — a loss of 776MW. Similarly, the 1,250MW Kot Addu Power Company was producing only 800MW, with a net loss of 450MW. The Faisalabad Gas Turbine Power Station, designed to produce 170MW, remained shut, and so was the 200MW rental power unit.

The company was getting only 50 per cent of its share of gas, according to Pepco’s director-general Tahir Basharat Cheema. “Pir Koh and Zamzama gas fields are offline, plunging the company in a real crunch.”

He said the situation would improve in the first week of September after Mangla Dam got filled and the run of the river increased.

Currently, Mangla Dam is generating only 350MW compared to 1,050MW produced last year. The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) was releasing only 10,000 cusecs, saving almost the same amount of water. The lake level is three feet below its optimum level of 1,202 feet.

On Tuesday, hydel generation remained around 5,600MW against the maximum possible generation of 6,600MW.

The extent of the crisis could be gauged from the fact that the company did not have enough fuel to restart even a unit of the Muzaffargarh Power House, another company official said.

“The situation at the company’s own thermal units is also messy. On Tuesday, all of them contributed only 2,000MW against 2,800MW when the oil supply situation was better.”

According to him, the company was facing a crisis in all three sources of generation — oil, water and gas. “It does not have sufficient oil because of the price factor and liquidity crunch. It does not have enough gas as a result of sabotage and because water releases are below normal owing to preference for irrigation.”

According to a Pepco press release, the pipeline supplying gas to the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) from the Zamzama gas field was blown up by saboteurs a couple of days ago, affecting gas supply to the Muzaffargarh Power House, Kot Addu Power Company and Faisalabad Gas Turbine Power Station.

There was an additional shortfall of about 1,000MW in the national grid because power houses were running below their capacity due to reduced gas supply.

“Under these circumstances, Pepco has to resort to forced loadsheding in a few areas. Resultantly, consumers have been facing loadsheding of relatively long hours than normal load management schedules.

“Necessary measures are being taken … to rectify the problem. It is expected that the situation will normalise by Wednesday.”