Parts of the country, including areas of Lahore, are in the grip of gas load shedding due to the widening gap between the demand and supply of the basic fuel.
According to media reports, the gas crisis has worsened in Karachi where thousands of households were deprived of it, while industry owners also complained of its unavailability.
Different areas of Lahore have also faced gas pressure issues for the last couple of days, people told Minute Mirror.
“There is no gas in my house on Sunday night. The pressure was very low on Monday morning,” said Muhammad Ashraf, a resident of Thoker Niaz Baig.
A shopkeeper at Multan Road near Hanjarwal, Muhammad Arif, also lamented over the low pressure.
Sarfaraz Ahmad of Gulshan-e-Abbas, Mansoorah Bazar, said he purchased a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder for cooking on Saturday as the area faced load shedding for around a week.
A local TV channel reported that there was low gas pressure and unavailability in Johar Town, Allama Iqbal Town, Scheme More, Bhagwanpura, Dharampura, Walled City and Shahdara areas. There were reports of gas load shedding in other cities of Punjab as well.
Sui Northern Gas Pipeline (SNGPL) spokesperson Amjad Ikram said that the company was receiving 1800 million cubic feet (mmcf) against the same demand from all sectors (domestic, industrial, power, fertilizers etc.).
Ikram, however, admitted the possibility of ‘low pressure issues’ in some areas under limits, which he said was entirely due to technical reasons.
The SNGPL had been working to update the network for the last couple of years and it would be fixed till next winter season in all its limits, he said. The SNGPL supplied gas to all sectors so far, Ikram said, adding the company would inform the media about the load management plan when it was issued.
Insiders said SNGPL planned to supply gas for households three times a day from December to March to mitigate the crisis in coming days.
The Cabinet Committee of Energy (CCoE) decided a week ago that the government would continue to supply gas to fertilizer and power sectors in winter. The supply to the industry and CNG sectors would likely be curtailed in the coming months.
The total requirement for gas in the country has been over 4,000 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd). The SNGPL has been distributing gas to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), while Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has provisioned it for Balochistan and Sindh.
The domestic production has been about 3,000mmcf while around 1,000mmcfd re-gasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) was being imported. Of that total import, SSGC has been receiving around 150mmcf. Punjab and KP need around 65 percent of the total demand.
