LAHORE, April 7: The plan for import of natural gas from Iran is likely to be finalized by 2005. This was stated by, managing director of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited Managing Director Rashid Lone at a press conference here on Wednesday.

The only point to be decided was whether or not India would take gas from the same source, he said. If India decided to use the source, the size of the pipeline would be increased accordingly. It would be no more than 42 inches otherwise. Work on the project had to be completed before 2010 when the country would be facing a gas shortage, he said.

The import plan from Qatar and Turkmenistan seems to have hit snags, but the survey for the Iran gas pipeline has already been completed. The MD also claimed that annual sales of the company had hit the figure of Rs68 billion, an increase of Rs13 billion over last year.

The increase has been made possible by a 50 per cent increase in supplies from the new fields of Sawan and Zamzama in Sindh. The company was selling 1,050 million cubic feet till last year and the figure had now gone up to 1,550 million cubic feet.

The extra supply has been given to power plants which are now running on gas instead of furnace oil. This conversion has saved the country $80 million per month since July 2003.

The company hopes to get 300 million cubic feet more from these sources by December and plans to further increase supplies to power plants in the country. It has already granted licence to 140 industries for generating four to 10 megawatts of captive power.

The MD said that the company had been spending Rs1.5 million a month on ensuring security of gas pipelines in the area between the Punjab and Balochistan where they were most vulnerable.

About the coverage of gas supplies, he said that only 19 per cent of the population was getting gas. In view of 120,000 applications for new connections, the company has requested the prime minister for a one-time permission for 100,000 new connections to clear the backlog.

The company is also increasing its annual new connections figure from 100,000 to 135,000, which would progressively be taken to 200,000, he claimed. Mr Lone claimed that as a matter of policy, the company had decided to stop cutting connections of the poor and recover money in instalments. All domestic bills of the poor would be recovered in no more than three instalments, he said.