K-Electric facing upto 300 MW 'shortfall owing to low gas pressure'

KARACHI: After the citizenry staging protests over unavailability of gas to cook their food and industrialists registering their grievances over longer unannounced gas load-shedding hindering their export orders, Karachi’s sole power distributor-K-Electric- joined them as well in lamenting gas pressure situation, ARY News reported on Friday.

K Electric wrote a letter to the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) calling on them to raise the gas supply and pressure to former’s plants.

The KE spokesperson said that the letter addressed to SSGS was intended to appeal for consistent gas supply and pressure for the power plants to run smoothly.

Due to the low and erratic gas pressure, KE said, the power production has plunged 250 to 300 megawatts. It detailed that three of its power plants received lesser energy than required, which results in the drop in energy generation.

K-Electric said that it was ready to deliberate and negotiate over the quantity and pressure of the gas, however, added that until the deliberations, it is looking forward to receiving the gas supply it demanded now.

Yesterday, the industrialists grieved gas load-shedding in the industrial areas of Karachi and noted how the shorage of gas noticeably affected their industrial production for exporting items. The businesses feared delay in international orders.

Read: Gas load-shedding in industrial areas afflicts export production units

“How can we continue the production of ongoing orders when there’s no gas to fuel industries,” said industrialists.

The industrial zones, across Karachi and its periphery, to experience continuous gas outages were SITE area, Korangi, New Karachi, F. B area, Nooriabad and Landhi.

The gas load-shedding from SSGC, however, is not limited to industrial regions alone and residential areas have also registered their severe protest for experiencing a perpetual dearth of gas.

In Orangi Town’s Mominabad neighbourhood people took to streets enraged over the gas crisis.