Sui Southern Gas Company has inked a new 'Term Sheet of Bhit Gas Sales Agreement (GSA)' with Italy-based ENI Pakistan Limited, the operator of Bhit and Badhra Gas fields in district Dadu, for enhanced production of natural gas. In this regard, the gas utility would lay a 24-inch diameter gas pipeline from Dadu to Karachi. This was stated by the Managing Director of SSGC, Munawar Baseer Ahmed, while talking to newsmen after the signing ceremony here on Friday.
Presently, he said, ENI Pakistan is supplying 270 MMCFD gas which SSGC is taking for the past three years and the annual offtake is about 95 percent of basic quantity.
By signing the term sheet for gas enhancement the production would reach 300 MCFD to the company's transmission in next two years' time.
The Eni is the largest supplier of good quality gas to the SSGC transmission which the company distributes gas to the consumers of Hyderabad and Karachi, he added.
The industrial sector is the high demand area of SSGC, after captive power, power generation plants, liquefied natural gas (LNG), domestic and commercial. "The company is supplying gas to all consumers, but the demand for gas is increasing in industrial sector due to growth," he added.
Earlier, during the ceremony, the SSGC chief said that the company is working on its five-year development plan "through which we are adding 500 mmcfd to our existing capacity of 1200 mmcfd".
Through the two agreements, "we have now in process, the company is adding 30 mmcfd from Bhit gas field and 150 mmcfd from Zamzama," Munawar added.
The company is also expecting additional quantity of gas from some other field and the total quantity stands at 225 mmcfd on the Indus Right Bank. The gas utility would lay a 24-inch gas pipeline from Bhit and Badhra gas field on the Indus Right Bank all the way to Karachi, he added.
"Especially, in the winter months, we would be able to bring more gas for the power sector and to meet the demands of Karachi, Hyderabad and other areas of franchise," he added.
ENI Pakistan Limited signed on behalf of the joint venture partners Kirthar Pakistan BV (a Royal Dutch/Shell Company), Premier Kufpec Pakistan (PKP) and Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC).
On the occasion, the Managing Director, ENi Pakistan Limited, Philip Hemmens said, "With this 'term sheet' we are going to increase the agreed quantity of gas that is taken from Bhit plant from 270 to 300 mmcfd."
The agreement allows ENI Pakistan to invest and produce more indigenous gas and bring it to the local market.
Philip Hemmens said that the company now supplies nearly a third of the volume of gas distributed by SSGC in Sindh and Balochistan.
The reserves forecast in Badhra and Bhit fully back up the supply of gas committed under the Gas Sales Agreement (GSA), he added.
The original Bhit GSA was signed in November 2000 under the agreement 270-mmcfd gas is already supplying to the gas utility (SSGC).