Petroleum Division notifies massive hike in gas prices

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker federal government has notified a massive hike in gas prices which would be taken into effect on November 1, ARY News reported on Monday.

The Petroleum Division issued a notification regarding the massive hike in gas prices for domestic, export, non-export units, CNG, cement and other sectors.

However, the gas prices were not hiked for protected consumers using 25 to 90 cubic metres in a month, however, the fixed charges for this category of consumers were increased from Rs10 to Rs400.

The notification stated that the gas prices for non-protected domestic consumers were hiked by over 172%.

The gas prices for different slabs of consumers are as follows:

Consumers using 25 cubic metres: From Rs200 to Rs300 per mmBtu
Consumers using 60 cubic metres: From Rs300 to Rs600 per mmBtu
Consumers using 100 cubic metres: From Rs400 to Rs1,000 per mmBtu
Consumers using 150 cubic metres: From Rs600 to Rs1,200 per mmBtu
Consumers using 200 cubic metres: From Rs800 to Rs1,600 per mmBtu
Consumers using 300 cubic metres: From Rs1,100 to Rs3,000 per mmBtu
Consumers using 400 cubic metres: From Rs2,000 to Rs3,500 per mmBtu
Consumers using over 400 cubic metres: From Rs3,100 to Rs4,000 per mmBtu
Tandoors: Rs600 per mmBtu (previous rate is maintained)
Power plants: Rs1,050 per mmBtu
Cement sector: Rs4,400 per mmBtu
CNG sector: Rs3,600 per mmBtu
Export units: Rs2,100 per mmBtu
Non-export units: Rs2,200 per mmBtu

ECC’s decision

On October 23, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had approved various summaries including revision of natural gas pricing.

A summary submitted by the Ministry of Energy (Petroleum Division) regarding the revision of the natural gas sale pricing for the FY 2023-24, was also approved as per the tariff schedule submitted by the Ministry, prospectively w.e.f. 1st November 2023, instead of 1st October 2023.

It was learnt that the federal cabinet is likely to approve a massive hike of up to 193 per cent in the gas tariff.

The government is likely to increase the local gas tariff up to 173% for non-protected domestic consumers, 136.4% for commercial, 86.4% for export and 117% for the non-export industry.