The Petroleum Minister, Dr Asim Hussain, on Saturday said that a permanent solution of circular debt would be finalised in the next few days. "I will announce a permanent solution of this issue any time next week", he said in a meeting at Federation House here on issues relating to petroleum, gas and CNG in the country with all stakeholders.
FPCCI president Senator Ghulam Ali, Tariq Sayeed VP-CACCI; S.M. Muneer President-IPCCI; Iftikhar Ali, VP-SAARC CCI; Dawood Usman Jakhura and Khalid Tawab, VPs-FPCCI were also present on this occasion. Other stakeholders including Azim Iqbal Siddiqui MD SSGC, Kalim Siddiqui of Byco Petroleum, Zahid Hussain from Lubricant business, Engineer M. A. Jabbar, representatives of CNG and petroleum associations including Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha, Abdul Sami Khan, Khuda Bukhsh and many others also attended this meeting.
The participants of the meeting discussed various issues relating to the gas and petroleum sector and gave their suggestions for resolution of these issues. The Minister said that diesel and petrol supply to Afghanistan has been suspended to control dumping and smuggling of petroleum products. "If the Afghan government wants continuity of supply of petrol and diesel, it would have to pay taxes", he added.
He said that gas development surcharge (GDS) was not being used properly. "It has been decided to impose 'Gas Infrastructure Surcharge' that will replace GDS and it would be used for development of gas infrastructure", he added. He said the foreign oil and gas exploration companies were reluctant to come to Pakistan due to security reasons. However, the situation is gradually improving and many foreign companies have shown interest to come to Pakistan and to start exploration activities in different parts of the country.
About distribution of gas among the provinces, he said that the 18th amendment has given first rights to the gas producing provinces to use their mineral resources. "Punjab produces only 8 percent of total gas production in the country", he said. "How can we give them more gas then their share ?", he asked. "It is a constitutional issue, and we can't violate it", he added. "However, we are trying to resolve this issue amicably", he said. He said there is shortage of gas in the country and the leaders of Punjab are opposing many projects, including Pakistan-Turkmenistan pipeline.
He said that policies were being made on ad hoc basis during the past 64 years in the country. "Due to the absence of long-term policies, we are now facing severe crisis of gas in the country", he said. "We want to adopt long-term policies that could resolve issues on permanent basis", he said, adding that the people would see results of the present government policies in next two to three years.
He said the government welcomes all criticism and it is good for improvement. However, the opposition should also give any solution that could be adopted to resolve issues, he added. He pointed out that the government has given many incentives in the Petroleum Policy. "We are also considering introducing solar heater to replace gas heater to save huge quantity of gas to be supplied to other sectors", he said. He said that the gas production has increased to 4.2bcfd from 3.9bcfs.
The gas production will further increase as the gas supply will soon start from new fields. The government is also focusing to tap the tight gas reserves to meet the local demand in the country. He said that the gap in the supply and demand of gas will increase in the coming winter season. This shortfall could increase to 400mmcfd in December and 600mmcfd in January, he added. The government is planning to manage this gap, he said.
He said that gas line losses have reduced to 11 percent from 14 percent. "We have negotiated a $200 million plan with the World Bank to control gas line losses", he said. He said that the gas theft law has been formulated and passed by the National Assembly a few days back. It is presently with the Senate, he said, adding that this law would help in controlling gas theft in the country.