Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) claimed Rs 3 billion production losses during the last 40 days due to low gas pressure from Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) According to PSM spokesman, the country's largest steel producing plant has reached on the verge of collapse due to continued gas shortage. The assessment is underway to calculate the actual loss and damage incurred due to low gas pressure, he said.
Presently, production at PSM has comes to zero and another Rs 2 billion loss are expected to occur till the restoration of production. PSM is facing a severe shortage of gas for the last 40 days and now at least one month will be required to restore production in the country's largest steel producing plant, he added. The low production has also reduced sales revenue and now PSM has insufficient amount to establish Letter of Credit for import of raw material including Iron Ore and Metallurgical Coal, he mentioned. He said that the federal government's efforts for the revival of PSM have failed, as production has stopped for the last few weeks.
PSM officials claimed that the concerned authorities and high ups were repeatedly informed by the management that due to low gas pressure Pakistan Steel is unable to continue its production and despite directives form the federal government SSGC is not supplying proper gas.
Since June 10, 2015 appropriate gas is not being supplied by SSGC and later on July 1, 2015, Major General Zaheer Ahmed Khan (Retd) discussed the issues with SSGC and Ministry of Petroleum officials, after which SSGC agreed to restore required gas pressure from July 6, 2015.
However, gas pressure was not provided as promised in the recent meeting of high ups, as a result PSM was unable to generate its power to keep the plant operational. In view of low gas pressure, the production of Pakistan Steel has already gone down to zero level, while the recent situation has damaged the plant severely, they added.
PSM officials have warned that less than required gas supply may cause irreparable damage to the plant, which will take years and huge sum to make the plant operational. They said that despite restoration of gas pressure, SSGS has issues notice for disconnection of complete supply from July 28, 2015 in case of non-payment of dues. While PSM management has already replied SSGC officials that any disconnection will led to a Rs 8-10 billion loss and will need four years to restore production. The PSM management has again requested Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Minister Finance Ishaq Dar to intervene and resolve the issue immediately to save the country's steel producing plant.
Comments
Comments are closed.