The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) has agreed to supply gas to industries for four days and curtail the weekly load shedding for three days to mitigate the woes of the industrial sector, Dr Ikhtiar Baig, Advisor to Prime Minister on textiles, told Business Recorder on Sunday.
Talking on telephone from Karachi, he said that he had held a meeting with Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain after his arrival from Abu Dubai on Saturday night and apprised him of the negative socio-economic impact of a 4-day disconnection of gas to industries in Punjab. He said that the Minister has directed SNGPL management not to increase the gas outages from three to four days in a week so that the manufacturers/producers and importers could fulfil their commitments.
Baig said the government has decided to give second priority to industrial sector, after domestic consumers, in the management of gas load shedding during winter. Gas companies supply natural gas to domestic consumers, industries, independent power producers (IPPs) and fertiliser factories. However, industrial sector's priority has been upgraded above the IPPs and fertiliser factories, he added.
It may be added that the industrial sector, especially textile manufacturing units, had been agitating against SNGPL's notification about suspension of gas supply to industries from 72 hours to 96 hours earlier this month due to reduced availability of gas in winter.
Pakistan Textile Exporters' Association office-bearers say that the three-day gas load shedding had already caused 35 percent decline in exports orders and due to four days' gas outages the exports would have declined to 50 percent. Exporters say that share of textile exports in Pakistan's yearly exports has been shrinking due to energy crisis in the country.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.