22,000 tons of FO supplied to power houses

ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources has supplied 22,000 tons of furnace oil to deal with the looming power crisis on a temporary basis, besides reducing gas supply to industrial sector of Punjab by an additional day.

According to sources in the Petroleum Ministry reduction of gas supply to industrial sector from five days a week to four days would only save 25 Million Cubic Feet per Day (mmcfd) gas which is not sufficient to generate power to impact significantly on load shedding.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) supplies around Rs 19 billion monthly fuel to oil based power houses, but due to inefficiency of the distribution companies only Rs 13 billion is being recovered from power consumers especially public sector, the sources added.

The Ministry of Finance has only managed Rs 4 million to pay PSO to immediately procure furnace oil to provide to power houses – an amount which is ‘a drop in the ocean’, sources added.

The official warned that as summer approaches power load-shedding would intensify and the government would be compelled to further increase the duration of power outages in cities as well as rural areas.

The only option left to the government is to start recovering outstanding dues against power defaulters on a war footing and pay dues to power houses, otherwise, supply-demand situation would further worsen.