The Northern Sui Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) stopped natural gas supply to about 200 big industrial units of Punjab and NWFP from Saturday owing to the closure of Qadirpur Gas Field for annual maintenance. Senior General Manager (Distribution) SNGPL Mujahid Anwar told Business Recorder that Qadirpur gas fields in Sindh, which provides 500 million cubic feet gas daily to Punjab and NWFP, would remain closed from October 11 to 18.
After this field becomes operational, another gas field, Sawan' in Sindh would be closed down from October 19 to 27 for maintenance. However, Anwar said that as Sawan gas fields supplies only 125 million cubic feet to the network, so there would be reduced loadshedding for the industries. He said though there would a shortfall of nearly 30 percent of gas due to closure of Qadirpur Gas field, yet there would be no loadshedding for the domestic consumers and small industrial units.
"Only cement, textile, glass and steel manufacturing units would suffer due to this loadshedding", he added. The Qadirpur gas field, 260 miles north east of Karachi, having a natural gas reserve of 2.9 trillion cubic feet in the Indus River flood plain, is the second largest in the country.
Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Punjab, Engr Akber Sheikh said that 50 percent textile industry of Punjab had closed down on Saturday due to the disconnection of gas while the remaining 50 percent would close down from October 13.
He said though some of the units would switch over to electricity, they too would be facing loadshedding of eight hours daily. "The use of electricity by the industrial units would further burden the national grid and cause longer loadshedding hours, he added.
Regarding financial impact of the gas disconnection, Sheikh said that Punjab's share is 70 percent of the country's total textile exports. "The closure of gas connection for two week means an immediate loss of 300 million dollars textile exports but its impact on the total business environment and domestic consumption would be far greater", he added.
The SNGPL Managing Director, Rashid Lone, has said that the company was anticipating a shortfall of 850 million cubic feet in the demand and supply of the natural gas during the coming winter season. Last year the shortfall was 700 million cubic feet and due to new domestic connections and increase in CNG consumption it might increase to 850 million cubic feet this year.
He said that provision of gas to the domestic consumers would be the top priority of the company during the shortage period. He said that around 3000 million cubic feet gas was being provided besides 1000 million cubic feet directly being supplied to fertiliser plants. There were some 3.1 million domestic and 45,000 commercial consumers.