HYDERABAD: President of Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry Muhammad Farooq Shaikhani said that Pakistan is a rich country in natural resources by the grace of Allah Almighty.
Nature has given this country more resources than developed countries. But due to mismanagement and corruption, not a single sector is able to develop itself. One of them is the problem of supply and shutdown of natural gas, which is getting worse day by day.
He stated that according to provided facts and figures, Pakistan had 63 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, of which about 42 TCF have been exploited.
Production of gas in Pakistan is about 14 lac 55 thousand and consumption is about 14 lac 36 thousand and the difference between production and consumption is only 19 thousand million cubic feet. Pakistan has only 12 years of natural gas reserves left. Which is an alarming situation but the government is not paying any attention to it and no effort is being made to find new reserves.
He showed the concerns that the gas crisis in Hyderabad, including in different parts of the country, has made life difficult for the citizens, and load shedding of gas at the time of Sehri and Iftaar has increased the problems of the consumers and made their lives miserable. Along with this, the supply of gas to the factories and industries also continues to be disrupted.
He said despite the warning of the Prime Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, no strategy has been adopted for gas supply in the month of Ramzan, and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Musaddiq Malik, has justified this by saying that the severity of the cold has increased in Balochistan, which is the reason that Gas load shedding has increased.
Farooq Shaikhani mentioned that most of the countries of the world are moving towards bio-gas plant and other countries including China, Finland and whole Europe are providing gas facilities to their citizens in the form of bio-gas. Bio-gas is also an alternative to natural gas for Pakistani authorities.
He said Qatar is a small country with only 11,500 square kilometers and a population of 27 lac. But proving to be a nation, in 1996, it put all its energy into converting LNG from solid to liquid and then from liquid to solid, that’s the reason that today Qatar’s LNG exports are worth $100 billion. One such alternative has to be found otherwise in future, the government will have to import LPG so much that it will directly target our shaky economy.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023