ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: The government on Thursday announced that the countrywide eight-hour daily loadshedding would continue until January 25 owing to shortage of oil and gas and canal closure for maintenance.

“The power availability shall by and large remain at the current level till January 25 when enhanced releases form Mangla and Tarbela dams are expected,” said an official statement.

The announcement was made after a meeting presided over by caretaker Minister for Water and Power Tariq Hameed could not come out with a solution to the country’s worst energy crisis and loadshedding.

Sources at the National Power Control said the gap between power generation and demand on Thursday was in access of 4000MW in the peak hours (evening) as demand surged to about 12,000MW.

The loadshedding has badly affected households, industrialists and businesses.

Informed sources said the country was facing a shortage of about 3,000MW because of a reduction in hydel power generation, but an additional burden of 1,500MW emerged in recent days, taking total shortage to over 4,000MW.

They said the situation could not improve in the near future because no new project was expected to start generation before January 2009, adding that not a single megawatt had been added to country’s generation capacity over the past 10 years.

The situation could worsen over the next few days as at least five independent power producers (IPPs) had fuel stocks for only two to five days, a senior government official said.

The additional shortfall of 1,500MW was due to a disruption of 600MW electricity supply from Hubco and 600MW reduction in the Kapco’s generation owing to gas and fuel shortage, while 300MW plant of the AES, an IPP, went out of order or remained short of oil stocks.

The sources said the water and power ministry, which is regularly provided a report on different power plants (public and private), their fuel situation, maintenance status and other activities, remained lenient in their monitoring role as the IPPs had failed to maintain fuel stocks as required under the agreement.

Kohinoor Energy has fuel for three days, Southern Electric for two days, Japan Power for zero days (hence closed) and Saba Energy for 10 days, while all rental stations were closed due to gas shortage.

Caretaker Power Minister Tariq Hameed, who also headed Wapda for more than four years, and Water and Power Secretary Ismail Qureshi were not available for comments despite repeated calls.

The meeting, however, prevailed upon the Sui Southern Gas Company to restore 25MMCFD of gas it had disconnected to power stations while another 15MMCFD would also be diverted from the SSGCL system to SNGPL for utilisation at Faisalabad, Mushaffargarh and rental thermal projects to increase generation by 250MW.

The situation might improve by the end of this month when canals would be open after maintenance, but a shortfall of about 2,000MW would remain, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) promised to cut loadshedding to half in a week’s time, and apologised to the nation and the industry for losses they had suffered during the recent days.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore on Thursday, Pepco chief Munawar Baseer Ahmed conceded that the company was facing a deficit of around 35 per cent and was compelled to shed load for eight hours daily.

Pepco, he said, had for the first time created a coordination committee to synchronise efforts by stakeholders of the power generation sector. The government has also formed a committee to coordinate efforts of all power players. “These committees have already started work and palpable results should be shown in a week’s time.”

Mr Baseer accused the IPPs of having failed to build up oil stocks and meet contingencies. “Most of the IPPs are left with a stock for a day or two.”

He said the Pepco authorities are helping the IPPs built their reserves and the matter of any damages under the contract would be taken up after that. “Train service has resumed and oil started arriving to the IPPs, and things should improve in a few days.”

“Once oil stocks are built, additional 1,000MW would be available in a week’s time, bringing the deficit down to 2,600MW. By mid-January, canal closure would end and additional water would be available to generate extra 600MW. The loadshedding would be brought down to a manageable level of 2,000MW by the third week of January,” he said.