KARACHI, Nov 1: The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has clarified that it was neither fined by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (ORGA) for failing to reduce targeted losses nor any independent audit of the company was carried out.

In a clarification faxed from Lahore, the SNGPL on Monday referred to a news item published in Dawn of October 30 and pointed out that the Regulator had fixed the target gas losses during transmission at 6.5 per cent of total gas available for sale through order issued on June 30, 2003 for the year 2003-04 against the actual loss of 8.19 per cent during 2002-03.

The SNGPL made extreme efforts to reduce the gas losses and the final accounts of the company for 2003-04 showed the loss of 6.65 per cent as against loss of 8.19 per cent for 2002-03. The difference of 015 has been disallowed by OGRA to be treated as operational losses. However, there is no question of imposition of penalty.

The SNGPL quotes section 27 of the licence given by the OGRA "In section by authority''. It says the Licensee shall permit any person duly authorized by the authority to carry out such inspection and examination of any of its assets or records may be required to be undertaken by the authority to comply with its functions or to exercise its powers under the Ordinance and the Rules. It makes it clear that under this section, Audit of Accounts of SNGPL is neither provided nor ORGA issued any direction in this regard.

The SNGPL has announced that its audited accounts are ready since mid-August and were held up due to revenue determination by the Regulator.

Original Story: Rs77.5m penalty imposed on SNGPL