Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has said that its 18 inch diameter high pressure gas pipeline was blown up by some unknown miscreants on Wednesday morning at Jaffarabad, Balochistan. The company said that this serious incident of insurgency occurred at 1:30am between Tuesday-Wednesday night, near village Khudad Jhakarani in the District Jaffarabad.
According to a press release, the incident was caused by an explosive device, resulting 8 to 10 feet deep trough and rupturing nearly 50 feet long pipeline in a tract of wet muddy land. The pipeline was carrying 114 million cubic feet gas daily (mmcfd) from Sui gas field to SSGC's pipeline system at Shikarpur, for its onward transmission to the entire Balochistan.
Subsequent to incident, the effected section of pipeline was immediately isolated. At the same time, company's emergency response team rushed to the site from Shikarpur to inspect the situation, which is awaiting permission by the security agencies, who are engaged in clearance of the said area. Another team was also mobilised from Karachi, early this morning, carrying heavy repair equipment and necessary material. SSGC is trying its best to manage the smooth and uninterrupted gas supply to the customers of Balochistan, who are combating extremely cold weather nowadays.
To manage the gas load, that was lost due to pipeline rupture, SSGC has announced a 'Shut down' for all the CNG stations in its franchise area of Sindh and Balochistan for a period of 36 hours. Now all the CNG stations will be closed from 8pm on Wednesday (Yesterday) till 8am on Friday (tomorrow). Due to this shortfall, SSGC management has requested its valued domestic, commercial and industrial customers to voluntarily curtail the use of gas by 20 percent immediately, otherwise the entire customers can come across low gas pressures.-PR