SSGC Rs25bn pipeline upgrade: majority of budget spent on road reconstruction

The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) is rehabilitating a 2,500 kilometer-long gas pipeline at the cost of Rs25 billion, with roughly 60% to 70% of the budget going to various provincial and local government departments for the reconstruction of roads, it has said.

The remaining 30% to 40% is spent mainly on purchasing pipes, while some goes towards labour.

The utility company is laying new gas pipelines in Karachi and other parts of Sindh, as well as in Balochistan, to improve the supply of natural gas to households, industries and commercial consumers, SSGC Deputy Managing Director, Operations, Syed Muhammad Saeed Rizvi told Business Recorder.

But citizens have complained that the roads that are cut in order for the new pipelines to be installed are not being repaired, causing significant unease while traveling.

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Some concerned departments have allegedly claimed that they have not received required funds from SSGC.

Rizvi said road reconstruction charges are paid in advance to related departments including Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), District Municipal Corporations (DMC) and Karachi Development Authority (KDA).

He said the gas utility firm cannot start cutting roads and laying pipelines without permission from concerned departments.

He added that infrastructure rehabilitation projects are time-consuming as major distribution pipelines have to be laid, and then connected to end-consumers through service lines. This is why road reconstruction sometimes faces prolonged delays.

“We will connect the recently laid distribution lines to end consumers over the next six months,” he said.

The rehabilitation, however, “would not help ending gas outages amid depletion of gas reserves in Pakistan and widening gap between demand and supply of the gas,” he clarified.

SSGC is laying new pipelines in various vicinities including DHA Phase-II extension, Lyari, Baldia, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, Garden, Malir, and towns of upper Sindh in the ongoing fiscal year.

The five-year project of infrastructure rehabilitation will be completed in Karachi in the next fiscal year 2025-26, Rizvi said.

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SSGC will rehabilitate another 2,000km in the city in the last phase at an additional budget to be unveiled for FY26, he added.

The firm is supplying 730 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) against a demand of 1,100 mmcfd, managing the deficit through industrial and household load management, he said.

SSGC is servicing some 3.2 million consumers on its roughly 50,000 km long network in Sindh and Balochistan.