The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has taken steps to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies to households during sehri and iftar, but this move comes at a cost to industrial consumers in Karachi, upper Sindh, and Balochistan. The company has introduced an additional 20mmcfd of imported gas into its system, which is costlier than indigenous gas.
According to SSGC’s Deputy Managing Director (DMD), Operations, Syed Muhammad Saeed Rizvi, domestic consumers will not bear the additional cost, which is the difference between the imported gas price and the tariff of indigenous gas for household consumers ¹. However, industrial consumers will have to absorb this cost.
The government has announced an RLNG gas price for SSGC at around $12mmbtu (approximately Rs3,360mmbtu), which is significantly higher than the price of indigenous gas sold to domestic consumers (Rs200mmbtu to Rs4,200mmbtu) ¹.
Despite these efforts, many households have still experienced gas outages during sehri and iftar, prompting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take notice and direct the SSGC to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies ¹ ² ³.
To address the issue, SSGC has implemented various measures, including:
- Gas Pressure Profiling: Carrying out gas pressure profiling from 09:00 am to 03:30 pm and then again from 10:00 pm to 03:00 am.
- Gas Availability Timing: Maintaining gas availability from 03:00 am to 09:00 am and 03:30 pm to 10:00 pm.
- New Gas Pipelines: Laying new gas pipelines in Karachi, Sindh, and Balochistan to improve gas supply to households, industries, and commercial consumers.
SSGC services around 3.2 million consumers on its 50,000 km long network in Sindh and Balochistan, supplying 730 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) against a demand of 1,100 mmcfd ¹.
Story by Salman Siddiqui
