LAHORE, Feb 8: With weather conditions improving, the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has decided to open the CNG stations in Lahore and Faisalabad regions for two days from next week.

SNGPL Managing Director Arif Hameed told a press conference on Friday that the Faisalabad region would get CNG supplies every Monday and Tuesday. The entire industry would start getting supplies, he said.

Similarly, the Lahore region would start getting supplies from next Thursday, he said, adding the two days would be decided soon. These supplies were suspended owing to extreme weather conditions in winter during which the difference between demand and supply increased.

The gap also increased because of more than 275,000 new domestic connections this year, he said. “The total demand in January was around 1,100mmcfd, which has now come down to 900mmcfd, giving company a margin for manoeuvering,” he said.

He hoped that the weather conditions would further improve in March, giving the company more space.

Mr Hameed said Pakistan’s gas reserves were depleting. The country was expecting 110mmcfd gas from the gas field of Kohat in near future. The company was also busy in improving its distribution network and work on 100km 24-inch line to Faisalabad was expected to start in December this year, he said.

The SNGPL managing director dispelled the impression that his company was deliberately avoiding selling gas to save line losses and diverting it to some more influential sectors. He insisted that gas could not be stored in pipelines beyond a limit and there was no other storage facility in the country.

“Selling gas to the industry is profitable for the company but, according to the policy of the government, domestic consumers are given priority,” he said.

Answering a question about the CNG stations which have taken stay orders from courts and are operating their stations, Mr Hameed said there were 838 such CNG stations but 604 stay orders had been vacated. Furthermore, these stay orders were not against the load management plan because it was approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the cabinet, he said.