LAHORE, Jan 4: Power supply to steel furnaces in the country will remain suspended for next 15 days, and all markets will be asked to pull down shutters during peak hours between 6.30pm and 8.30pm from Jan 8 to 25.
The decision was made by a committee on power systems operation which met here on Friday to review power supply position in the country.
The meeting of the Power System Operation Committee was attended by the representatives from Pakistan Electric Power Company (PepCo), gas companies, Indus River System Authority (Irsa), Pakistan Railways and Pakistan State Oil.
The committee, headed by federal secretary water and power, regretted that all the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) failed to build up their stocks beyond 10 per cent. The committee put the IPPs on notice to build their stocks immediately and explain why they failed to keep stocks of 60 per cent of their one month consumption, which is enough to generate power for 21 days.
At the same time, the PSO and Pakistan Railways offered all possible help to build their stocks.
The representatives of the Railways informed that 15 trains carrying oil have already moved to their destination, and would start reaching their destinations by late Friday night.
The representative of Pakistan State Oil also promised to take additional measures to ensure speedy arrival of oil to all the IPPs.
The thermal units of the Pakistan Electric Power Company had 59 per cent of stocks, against only 10 per cent of IPPs,” said one of the participants.
The company felt let-down by the IPPs, which failed to come up to expectations at the most critical juncture of power crisis, he said.
Only Hubco and Wapda thermal units had oil, but it was also because the latter has not been producing electricity to its full capacity, he said and added: “One of the units of 300MW has been out of operation for the last three months. It was supposed to come on line by early December, but the company was informed that equipment imported from Italy failed to fit in, and make the machine running. Since then, it has been running on 75 per cent and contributing to the problem.”
The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) also promised to spare more gas for power sector on a priority basis.
The SSGPL has already started supplying 25 million cubic feet of gas to the sector, mitigating problems to some extent, he said.
The committee also hoped that the situation would start easing in the next few days as gas and oil companies have joined hands to improve supplies to power sector.
The railway representative informed that a train carrying oil had derailed near Rahimyar Khan because of its broken excel, but it would not effect traffic for too long and things would normalise in the next 24 hours.
