The rise in temperature has reduced domestic consumption and the gas so saved has now been diverted to four fertiliser plants, PakArab, Dawood Herucules, Agritech and Engro’s new plant(above), but the supplies were less than 80 per cent of their requirements.         — Dawn (File Photo)

ISLAMABAD: With gas supplies partially restored to four fertiliser plants on the SNGPL (Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited) system following recent rises in temperatures, policymakers are worried about continuous surge in CNG consumption which they believe may adversely affect the country’s long-term economic growth.

Officials said the gas shortage would continue even during summer months, requiring reduced supplies to power sector, textile and fertiliser industries. This may cause losses in production.

With the current gas consumption of about 270 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD), the demand for CNG growing by more than 5 MMCFD per month mainly because of continuous increase in conversion of private vehicles from petrol to the cheaper fuel and the addition of over 600 new CNG stations over the past four years, the shortage would be difficult to avoid, a government official told Dawn on Wednesday.

He said the CNG consumption would increase to more than 350 MMCFD next year even though the government continued with the three-day shutdown in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a one-day closure in Sindh and Balochistan.

The official anticipated an even more serious gas shortage over the next two years and beyond and said the government would have to speed up work on the Iran-Pakistan Gas pipeline project and start importing Liquefied Natural Gas to maintain the shortage at the current level.

He said the rise in temperature had reduced domestic consumption and the gas so saved had now been diverted to four fertiliser plants — PakArab, Dawood Herucules, Agritech and Engro’s new plant, but the supplies were less than 80 per cent of their requirements.

The official said the petroleum ministry would not be in a position to provide gas to four power plants — namely Sapphire, Saif, Halmore and Orient — while many units in Wapda system would have to run on alternate fuels like furnace oil and diesel.

Officials said the two fertiliser plants — Fatima Fertiliser and Engro — were in dispute over allocation of the Latif Gas field in Sindh for dedicated gas supplies. Owned by state-owned Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Latif field was originally meant for supplying gas to Engro fertiliser in view of sovereign guarantees issued to Engro for 100mmcfd of gas by the SNGPL.

The petroleum ministry had formally forwarded a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet seeking allocation from the Latif field to Engro through a dedicated pipeline of about 100 kilometres.

The summary was withdrawn at the eleventh hour following political pressure in favour of the Fatima fertiliser.

Officials said the Fatima Fertiliser was over 500 kilometres away from the Latif field and might turn out to be an economic proposition for the state-owned gas companies.

Officials said the fertiliser sector could not utilise its full capacity this year and could produce only 4.9 million tons of urea against an installed capacity of about 6.9 million tons.