The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has reduced prices of Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) for current month. However, transmission and distribution losses have been increased from 8.07 percent to 11.12 percent for RLNG consumers which are up by 30 cents per MMBTU. At 8.07 percent T&D losses for PSO should be 0.7027 percent whereas they are 1.0923 percent. Similarly for Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL), they should have been 0.7311 percent but they are 1.0073 percent.
The oil and gas regulator set RLNG price for consumers of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) at $10.3042 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) and for consumers of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) at $10.2543 per mmbtu for March. For February 2019, the price was $10.5993/mmbtu for SNGPL and $10.9062/mmbtu for SSGCL consumers. The new notified prices for March 2019 have been reduced by 2.78 percent (or $0.295/mmbtu) for SNGPL and 5.977pc (or 0.6519/mmbtu) for SSGC compared to prices in previous month of February 2019.
In February 2019 too, the government had reduced the RLNG prices for SNGPL consumers by 3.97pc to $10.599/mmbtu and for SSGC it was cut by 4.10 pc to $10.906/mmbtu.
This gas price is pegged with the crude oil prices, and it was expected that due to decline in international oil prices, the local consumers of the RLNG would get a sizable cut. These prices also include charges of the LNG terminals, transmission losses, port charges and margins of the importers i.e. Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL).
These new RLNG weighted average sale prices for March 2019 have been computed, based on the 10 cargoes imported during the month of February, which six were imported by Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and four by Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL). Sources said that the government took over as a change for good but it appears that SNGPL took the task of bringing about unpopular change. First, they started with shortage of gas and now they increased the UFG by more than 3 percent.