Sindh CNG stations shutdown for 24 hours amid intensifying gas crisis

KARACHI: The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations will remain closed for further 24 hours from this morning to reopen on Tuesday after recent four days’ long gas shutdown, ARY News reported on Monday.

The gas shortage has intensified with the advent of the winter as domestic consumers facing the problem of low gas pressure.

Most of the homes in several localities of Karachi as well as in other parts of Sindh facing the issue of low gas pressure causing headache to housewives in cooking.

The situation is not better in various cities of Punjab where undeclared gas load shedding causing problems for the citizens in Lahore as well other parts of the province. ” Only the export industries being supplied gas on preferential basis”.

It is to be mentioned here that the CNG stations across Sindh were re-opened after closure of four days as long queues of the vehicles witnessed on the filling stations on Saturday.

The shutdown of the CNG stations had further aggravated the plight of the commuters in Karachi using public transport.

According to a report, a sudden drop in temperature across the country has deepened the ongoing gas crisis as the total shortfall surged to 600 million metric cubic feet a day (MMCFD) that may force the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) to curtail the supply to sectors other than domestic consumers.

The shortfall has affected not only the supply to domestic consumers but also to the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector for the past several days.

About the changing weather pattern, officials said Pakistan was the fifth most affected country by climate change. The intensity of winter these days is very harsh, pushing up demand in all provinces.

The SSGC, supplying gas to Sindh and Balochistan, faces a shortfall of 400MMCFD with the current demand surged to 1,500 MMCFD.