'Loadshedding will come down in two days with oil supply'

Managing Director (MD) Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Rasul Khan Mehsud said Tuesday the power load shedding would come down in two days with oil supply to the thermal units. The total power shortfall due to poor supply of furnace oil was 4000MW against 1000MW due to non-availability of Sui gas. Thus, a total shortfall of 5000MW can easily be met provided required quantity of fuel is available to run the power generation units, he added.
He was speaking at a media briefing held at the Wapda House auditorium on power situation in the country. He said an oil ship has already touched the Karachi port on May 1 and offloading is starting from Tuesday.
Mehsud has expressed the hope that the situation would improve with availability of fuel to thermal units in next few days. "With improvement in oil supply, power generation on Kapco, Hubco and such other thermal units would increase, which are running on their half capacity presently," said MD Pepco. He also added that smooth supply of oil would put an end to the forced closures in the country.
He said he has proposed the government to conduct an independent study before putting power sector on priority for gas supply. However, he tendered his apology to the nation for the troublesome situation faced by it due to rising load shedding in the country.
Meanwhile, some independent sources told Business Recorder that actual power shortfall during last 24 hours has touched 8000MW. Interestingly, the MD Pepco said during media briefing that the power shortfall during last 24 hours was not more than 5000MW.
Later on, he also rejected the impression that the Pepco was involved in fudging of figures, adding that there was a practice of doing so in the past. But I have assured personally that actual figures should be passed on to the consumers, he stressed.
Mehsud said he had pledged to bring down power shortfall to half comparing with last year when he took charge of his office, as MD Pepco. However, he said, unfortunately the month of April has disturbed all his plans when cold weather persisted for long, resulting into late start of glacier melting on mountains.
He added in the same breath that there was no lack of planning on his part and addition of new thermal units would bring the shortfall down to 1148MW by next month. Mehsud said the dependable capacity of the system was 19000MW and maximum demand this year is likely to touch the level of 18000MW. He also blamed the poor hydrology for snail-pace hydel generation in the country. He said it is not power crisis but energy crisis, as the thermal units were not receiving oil and gas to keep their operations intact.
According to him, both oil crisis and circular debt has put the upside down on power generation front. On supply to the KESC, he said the Pepco was not in favour of troubling the citizens of Karachi; therefore, supply to the KESC was improving with every passing day. Mehsud said working on wrapping up Pepco by June 30 was intact and he was there to wind it up within announced deadline.