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ISLAMABAD: Additional 700 mmcfd of gas will be added to the system by June this year to ease the ongoing energy crisis, Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain said on Friday.
Talking to media after a meeting with office-bearers of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma), the minister said that the petroleum ministry had prepared a three-year plan to overcome the gas shortage.
“The plan will be made public soon after finalisation,” he added.
“Currently the demand of natural gas stands at around 6 billion cubic feet daily (bcfd), while its production was around 4.2 bcfd only,” the minister said, adding that the supply to domestic consumers would improve after the extreme cold spell is over as the demand for heating would also ease down.
He told media that negotiations were underway for importing LNG from Qatar and the term sheet would be received next week.
The minister informed that he was proceeding to India for holding talks with his counterpart on the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India Pipeline project.
“I am making personal efforts to break the influence of cartels in the oil and gas sector and always uphold merit in decision making and all gas consuming sectors are provided gas on equitable basis,” the minister responded to a question about the outcome of meeting with Aptma delegation.
The minister said that all the sectors would have to contribute in the form of gas load shedding as the shortfall was enormous.
He said that the Gas Load Management Programme had been prepared after thorough consultations with all the stakeholders.
The minister said measures had been taken to bring down the percentage of Unaccounted-for-Gas (UFG) in the SNGPL and SSGC networks.
He warned that strict action would be taken against gas thieves as per the Gas Theft Act.
“Since everybody is facing gas shortage this is not the time to create confrontations. I urge all stakeholders to cooperate for overcoming the energy crisis,” he requested.
