The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has significantly increased its sale and earned profit more than expectations in the nine months of the current fiscal year while it achieved a record transmission of over one billion cubic feet of gas per day.
The SSGC Board of Directors in its meeting held here approved the accounts for the third quarter and cumulative for the nine months period ended on March 31, 2004.
During this period the company had sales revenue of Rs 34.779 billion as compared to Rs 25.894 billion during the same period of last year.
The company earned a pre-tax profit of Rs 1.428 billion against last year''s Rs 1.371 billion, indicating an increase of 4.16 percent.
The gas sales in volume was 235,292 MMCF during the period, from 184,100 MMCF of last year, which increased by 34 percent by value and an increase of 28 percent by volume.
The company achieved a record of transmitting more than one billion cubic feet gas per day during January 2004 and has since then maintained sales close to or above 1,000 MMCFD.
SSGC further claimed that during this period, the company laid 592 km mains and service pipeline, and added 46,898 customers comprising 197 industrial, 883 commercial and 45,818 domestic.
The board observed that the performance continued to grow throughout the period and further new initiatives were launched. Concurrently with operations and management restructuring Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) was also initiated.
"The company is making substantial investments in technology-based initiatives and their implementation to sustain the ongoing upgradation strategy of the company," said a press release issued on Saturday.
A pilot programme for customer information system is already in hand, which will enable the company to define its requirements for presale, sale and post-billing.
The company is moving ahead with the technology-based bill-printing system.
The Board of Directors also observed that the company is working on a five-year development plant to supply gas to new towns and villages, which were deprived of the facility previously.
Under this programme, 36 schemes in Sindh are under consideration. Physical execution on 15 schemes has been started and 9 villages have been commissioned.
Similarly, there are 12 schemes in Balochistan for providing gas to small towns and villages. Physical work on 6 schemes has been started and one town and 13 villages have been connected to the gas distribution network.
Work on supply of gas to Ziarat is in advanced stage of completion and about 80 km supply mains has been laid and project completion is expected by mid-June, 2004," said the release.
For projects which do not meet the economic criteria set by the cabinet, additional grants have been received/committed from/by the government to cover the cost difference, enabling the company to maintain the economic criteria for the gas supply schemes.
The company has to date received Rs 602 million as grants from GOP in this context, which is in accordance with the budgeted requirements, the press release added.