Winter season brings 115 mmcfd gas deficit to SSGC

ISLAMABAD: Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) notified the Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum that, presently SSGC is experiencing a deficit of almost 115 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) gas in the network. The reason behind the shortfall of gas is mainly due to reduction of natural gas reserves and restriction in production fields.

A meeting was chaired by Mohsin Aziz, where Muhammad Amin, the Managing Director SSGCL explained that, “In present year, the company obtained almost 12,000 mmcfd gas comparatively to 1,280 mmcfd gas it had obtained in the previous year’s same time period.”

He also added that, company was contributing in all endeavors in order to cover the breach between demand and supply of the service at the initial stages by executing its load-management plan. He explained that the discrepancy of 80 mmcfd was due to the natural reduction of original gas reserves, which was also affected by the lessening in gas provisions from Kunner and Gambat fields because of condensate storage difficulty at the fields and refineries.

However, in order to guarantee the gas supply to domestic consumers in existing gas shortfall, he stated, the company provided notifications to captive power customers in October 2018, informing that it would not be able to provide gas from December to February, and the customers were advised to make substitute fuel arrangements.

Furthermore, the committee members illustrated their displeasure over the data presented related to gas supply to various sectors which consist of domestic, commercial, power, zero rated general industries, industrial and captive power plants, cement and compressed natural gas stations etc.

Muhammad Amin, MD SSGCL stated that gas price was charged according to the rates confirmed by Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, however, the company was not obtaining any Liquefied Natural Gas supply and its total dependence was mainly on original natural gas production.

Managing Director SSGC while mentioning about amplified volume of unaccounted for gas (UFG) in Balochistan, commented that they are working on a plan to initiate fixed tariff in the province for consumers for the whole year, so as to diminish the losses.

According to sources, the representatives of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited stated that the company had administered to conquer UFG losses in Punjab, however, they are facing complexity in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

This meeting was attended by Senators Taj Mmuhammad Afridi, Imamuddin Shouqeen, Sherry Rehman and Sassui Palijo, along with senior officials of the Petroleum Division and its connected departments.