ISLAMABAD: Domestic gas shortage has reached 1.6 billion cubic feet (BCF) per day mark, resulting in closure of thousands of industrial units across the country, a senior official of Petroleum Ministry revealed. The official said that at present Pakistan's total gas production stands at 4.3 BCF against total demand of 6 BCF.
According to the official, consumers on the system of Sui-Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL), especially in Punjab are facing up to one BCF shortage of gas as a result the management has forced to cut gas supply to the industrial sector of Punjab for 5 and half days a week, besides three-day gas suspension for the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations.
Currently, all the sectors of economy using gas are facing serious curtailment of gas including industries in Punjab, fertiliser sector, CNG stations and commercial. While the domestic gas consumers are complaining of the gas shortage or low gas pressure.
Natural gas is playing a dominant role which constitutes over 50 percent of the country's total energy mix, as from power houses to household each sector largely depends on the supply of gas.
The Petroleum Ministry with the arrival of winter has refused to supply 207 Million Cubic Feet (MMCFD) per Day gas to the power sector along with suspending five and a half days gas supply to the industrial sector of Punjab to effectively deal with the increasing supply/demand situation.
The ministry has also expressed its inability to partially resume gas supply to the fertiliser plants on the system of SNGPL due to harsh winter. Officials said that in the winter season gas demand in the domestic sector of SNGPL jumps to 800-900 MMCFD, which is nearly 60 percent higher than summer. The gas supply to industrial sector in Punjab areas including Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Multan, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Islamabad and Rawalpindi has been suspended.
According to the schedule provided by SNGPL, the industries in Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Multan, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Islamabad and Rawalpindi are expected to get gas for 36 hours next week from 6 pm on Friday till 6 am Saturday.
During the past 60 years a total 810 exploratory wells have been drilled till September 2012, (794 onshore and 16 offshore) in the sedimentary basins of Pakistan covering 827,268 sq. km. up to September 2012, 252 oil and gas fields (59 oil and 193 gas and gas/condensate) have been made in various basins of Pakistan which gives drilling density of 2.32 wells per 1,000 sq. km and success rate of 1:3.2. Despite lower drilling density as compared to global drilling density of 10 wells per 1,000 sq. km, the success rate of Pakistan compares favourably with international success rate of 1:10.
The total recoverable reserves of natural gas and oil are estimated at 56.019 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and 1052.38 million barrels respectively. Allowing for cumulative production, the remaining reserves are 341.932 Million barrels oil and 26.65 TCF gas. Large areas of Pakistan's petroliferous basins still remain geological frontier and holds promise for the future in view of the multiple habitats for petroleum generation and accumulation.
Independent international studies indicate an oil and gas potential that is many times more than these proven reserves. Oil and gas production has registered a steady increase over the last few years on the back of successful exploratory efforts of the companies. The production of oil during 2011-12 was 67,140 barrels per day (Fig. 5) while gas production reached a record level of 4.259 billion cubic feet per day.