The minister asked the authorities to immediately restore gas supply by ensuring highest safety standards within the shortest possible time.
Many gas pipelines and meters in Satellite Town still remained choked with condensate oil on Monday despite hectic efforts by the staff of a gas company to clear it.
For the last several days, the residents of Satellite Town, mostly in the localities of B, D, and E blocks, Dhoke Hukam Dad and Tehmaspabad have been facing the curious phenomena of condensate oil oozing out of their gas pipelines. In some places the problem was so acute that it created pools of oil.
The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines staff remained busy cleaning the mess. The SNGPL general-manager, Ismail Paracha, who was supervising the clean up operation, told Dawn that “the gas supply remained suspended for short intervals of time to some of 250 houses”.
He said the condensate oil seeped into the distribution network of Rawalpindi-Islamabad area through one of the source points at Rawat which led to the shutdown of LPG extraction plant at Pindori oilfield.
As a result some of the LPG contents being produced at the oilfield has been carried over along with the gas stream, he added.
“About 99 per cent of the problem has now been solved”, he said. Asked why the clean up took so long, he said the problem was that the oil continued to seep into the pipelines even after they were cleared at night. “But now, we have overcome the problem”, he said adding that authorities of the oilfields nearby have been asked to take corrective measures.
Mr Paracha said the problem was not so serious as it was made to look. “This happens usually in winter when gas gets liquefied, but for the first time it has happened in summer”, he said.
Some affected people and local representatives said the problem still existed. Haji Saeed, Nazim of the area, said all the oil-polluted pipelines and meters in streets 1 to 5 of Mohallah Mehmood Ali Shah and streets 27 and 28 of Mohallah Hukam Dad had been cleared.
But the Satellite Town Union Council Nazim, Mian Imran Hayat, said some houses in his area were still been facing the problem. He said the SNGPL staff was answering the complaints.
Mr Hayat criticized the large number of CNG stations established in the thickly populated residential areas of Satellite Town. Eight or more CNG stations were operating in the small locality, he added.
