PM directs petroleum ministry to address gas supply issue

22 Dec, 2011

The Prime Minister gave these directions while chairing a meeting on Liquid Natural Gas and gas import at the PM House.

The Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, briefed the meeting that 100 MMCFD gas from Hyderabad Gas Field would be available within a month. This gas would be put into the national system to ease pressure of gas outages on the domestic and industrial consumers.

The Secretary Petroleum said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would get 15 MMCFD gas from Kohat Gas Field immediately which would be put into the national system.

He said the government had taken emergency measures to address the gas shortage in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and the issue had been resolved by 80 percent.

The Secretary said the negotiations with CNG Association were underway in order to rationalize the supply of gas to the CNG stations.

He said priority would be given to the domestic consumers in these negotiations.

The Secretary said it was also decided to negotiate terms with the industrial sector aimed at ensuring uninterrupted supply of gas to the households.

The Ministry of Petroleum informed that the Steering Committee consisting of Chief Minister Balochistan, Foreign Minister, and Secretaries of Finance and Petroleum Ministries had approved the financial consultancy for Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, which was a major step forward as far as the project was concerned.

The Secretary apprised the meeting that 750 MMCFT more gas would be flowing into the system by November 2014, which would be sufficient to meet the 40 percent country's gas deficiency.

The Prime Minister appreciated the efforts of the Ministries for undertaking major steps on fast-track basis.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Minister for Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain, Secretary Finance Dr Waqar Masood Khan, Secretary Water and Power Imtiaz Hussain Qazi, Secretary Petroleum Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, Secretary Cabinet Nargis Sethi, Chairman NEPRA Khalid Saeed, Chairman FBR Salman Saddique, Chairman OGRA Sabir Hussain, Chairman Port Qasim Authority Vice Admiral Muhammad Shafique, and MD Private Power and Infrastructure Board N.A. Zuberi.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011

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