The gap between supply and demand of natural gas has reached nearly one billion cubic feet per day mark (bcfd) resultantly the management is forced to cut gas supply for industrial sector of Punjab and CNG sector of Sindh, officials said.
According to Petroleum Ministry estimates, natural gas shortfall against committed supplies would be around 911 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) in December and will increase up to 1.1 MMCFD in January 2012 and 1.4mmcfd in February, before easing down to 726mmcfd in March.
Diversion of gas to fertiliser sector in November which would continue in December too has resulted in a decline of 325MW in power generation and shifting gas based Independent Power Plants (IPPs) on diesel will enhance the cost of electricity being produced by these IPPs.
According to official estimates, gas shortfalls are estimated to reach 2.5 BCFD in 2014-15, 3 bcfd in 2015-16 and 3.5 bcfd in 2016-17. The gap is estimated to peak at 5 bcfd by 2020-21, unless major discoveries and field developments are made in the coming years.
The government had decided to keep power sector exempt from gas supply on Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) network for the current month considering slow pace of urea imports. However, power and domestic sectors will be getting more gas supplies after fertiliser sector goes on its annual turnaround from January 2012.
The government is also considering introducing smart metering for the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations and allocating fixed weekly quotas for all CNG stations so that gas theft and other malpractices could be checked. Under the arrangement, it will be up to the CNG stations to exhaust their quotas in a day or over a period of seven days depending on the number of vehicles coming for refilling.
Officials said that the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project should have been completed on an emergency basis keeping in view the coming gas shortage, but the previous and current governments failed to pay heed to this national crisis in time and the citizens would have to bear the brunt of their recklessness.
An official of the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Ltd (SNGPL), when contacted, said that to provide uninterrupted gas to domestic consumers the company has announced three-day gas curtailment for the industrial sector as well as three day gas suspension for CNG sector.
He said that the consumption of gas increased from the year 2000 onwards on a massive scale. Initially, domestic users were consuming 32 percent of the total gas supply, general industries 24.9 percent, the power sector 22 percent, commercial users 5 percent, and the CNG sector 4 percent.
However, the ratio has now changed with domestic consumers consuming 26.07 percent, the power sector 15.9 percent, the CNG sector 11.85 percent, fertilisers 7.82 percent, and the commercial sector 4.75 percent. It was stated that the shortfall was already 625 million cubic feet, which is likely to increase to a record level of 1000 cubic feet this winter.