Ministry of Energy on Thursday discussed fuel stocks position of power sector and directed concerned organizations to arrange required funds and ensure supply in April 2022, well informed sources told Business Recorder.
The meeting was informed that electricity demand has increased by 45 per cent in April 2022 as compared to correspondent month of 2021, which has created fuel shortage in some of the plants. Another reason of higher demand is high temperatures, which has increased power demand.
National Power Control Centre (NPCC) informed the meeting that operations of power plants will cease if immediate measures are not taken to make required fuel available.
According to sources, it has been decided that NPCC will give daily fuel requirement of each power plant to Central Power Purchasing Agency- Guaranteed (CPP-G) and Pakistan State Oil (PSO) till April 30, 2022. Subsequently, CPPA-G will release funds to PSO which will supply fuel to each power plant.
NPCC alerts govt: Fuel paucity may severely hit power plant operations
However, to deal with current fuel crisis, the meeting also decided to supply from plants where stocks are higher than those plants which are facing acute shortage.
The representative of NPCC revealed that at present RLNG allocation is only 550 MMCFD against power sector demand of 690 MMCFD for April 2022, resulting in greater dependence on RFO-based generation. The present RFO stock at various Gencos & IPPS power plants is very low and the detail of RFO stock available were as follows: (i) Muzaffargarh (very critical);(ii) Saba (very critical);(iii) Pakgen (very critical);(iv) Lalpir very critical;(v) Jamshoro(critical);(vi) Kapco(critical);(vii) Nishat Chunian (critical;(viii) Liberty Tech (critical); and (ix) Hubco-Narowal(critical).
The sources claimed that there is no scheduled load shedding in any part of the country and even areas where recovery-based load shedding is in place have been given exemption from load shedding at the time of Sehri and Tarawahi.
Director General Oil maintains that the shortfall would also have direct implications for the power sector. Moreover, as per previous trend, a surge in the demand of petroleum products is expected in the retail, as well as, power sector from April to June 2022, which will be difficult to meet unless funds are paid to PSO to reduce the receivables.
PSO’s receivables from power sector stood at Rs 83.512 billion, of which share of Genco/ CPPA-G is Rs 70.506 billion, Hub Power Company (Hubco) Rs 13 billion. However, after addition of Late Payment Surcharge (LPS) of Rs 83.788 billion, receivables stood at Rs 167.3 billion. Director General Oil has requested Power Division to ensure payment of at least Rs 25 billion out of outstanding to PSO on most immediate basis by April 15, 2022 so that the oil supplier could avoid default and continue smooth supply of energy products in the country.
