ISLAMABAD: With an anticipated shortfall of upto 3.7 billion cubic feet (bcf), Pakistan is heading towards worst crisis of natural gas in next winters.
In the financial year 2017-18, before the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government completed five- year term, the gap between supply and demand was 1.44 bcf.
This shortfall is likely to reach 3.7 bcf during the financial year 2019-20, a whopping increase of 152 percent, revealed the official documents of Oil and Gas Regularity Authority (OGRA)-the watch dog of the sector, available with The News Today.
OGRA anticipates that demand of gas fuel for residential sector may stand at 663 million cubic feet (mcf)-an increase of 25.80 percent in the next fiscal compare to 2017-18.
According to the policy adopted by the federal government, the power sector is given priority over all other gas consumers.
Documents revealed that demand of energy (power) sector may stand at 1.54 billion cubic feet (bcf)-an increase of 137.23 percent during FY 2019-20, compared to demand of power sector in FY 2017-18.
As a result, 9.2 million gas consumers may face gas crisis, they never seen before, from next winters. Fuel prices during the last one year have already increased, inflation is getting out of control-price hike not only of the petroleum products but electricity and commodities of daily use, like edible and even medicines are sky rocketing, for a common man.
The inexorable energy crises as a result of expected gas short fall, would further add pressure on incumbent government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), already facing public wrath. Imran Khan’s government would have no option but to put blame on its predecessors-the PML-N government-and to a great extent, rightly so.
Senior officials of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) told The News Today that after disqualification of former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif in result of Supreme Court decision in Panama leaks case, PML-N was desperate to gain the sympathies and public support.
To get political mileage in general election 2018, regime expedited the ongoing and pending development projects.
One of the tactics readily available to them was, to provide more gas connections. In a short span of time while Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was prime minister, gas utility companies added 678,872 new consumers to their network during FY 2017-18.
The watchdog OGRA in its official documents confirm that out of 9.2 million, 6.3 million were linked to SNGPL and 2.9 million with SSGCL network respectively.
OGRA documents further explain that energy sector is the main consumer of natural gas during FY 2017-18, consuming 37 percent followed by domestic sector 20 percent, fertilizer 17 percent, captive power 10 percent, industrial sector 9 percent, transport 5 percent, and commercial sector having 2 percent share.
The Province wise gas consumption reveals that Punjab share is the highest with 50 percent, followed by Sindh 39 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 9 percent and Balochistan 2 percent during the year under review.
Natural gas supplied during the said fiscal year was 4.357 bcf, out of which Sindh province supplied 50 percent to the total gas supplies, whereas Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab supplied 12, 11 and 4 percent respectively. The remaining 23 percent of gas was imported in the form LNG.
Natural gas is a major contributing fuel in country’s energy mix. Its share in the primary energy mix is around 48 percent.
The country has a huge network of gas pipelines providing natural gas to domestic, industrial, commercial and transport sectors. There has been a significant rise in demand and consumption of gas by residential / domestic consumers owing to price differential vis-a-vis other competing fuels, i.e. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), fire wood.
Addition of new connections without injection of additional gas in the system, has further strained the gas availability. Once the winters set in, the demand of domestic consumers would also increase. This likely to have an unprecedented gap between supply and demand.
