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Today's Paper | November 25, 2024

Updated 13 Apr, 2017 03:43pm

Sindh to block gas to Pakistan if SSGC does not finalise gas provision agreement: CM Shah

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Shah in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday threatened to restrict the province's gas supply to the rest of the country if an agreement with the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) for provision of gas to the province is not finalised by the weekend.

Shah, elaborating the details of the agreement, which seeks the provision of an additional 20 million cubic feet of gas per day to the province, said Sindh requires the gas to produce an additional 100 megawatts of power, which was to go online through K-Electric (KE) this month.

The agreement, first been taken up in February 2013 during the PPP government's last tenure, has yet to be finalised by the provincial government and SSGC.

"We are setting up a 100MW power plant in Nooriabad and the Hyderabad Electric Supply Co (Hesco) was supposed to sell power [from the plant] to Hyderabad consumers," he said.

"After signing an agreement, Hesco said it had surplus power and they do not need any new schemes. If Hesco is to be believed, then load-shedding has ended in the Hyderabad division," he said.

"There cannot be a bigger lie."

"The institution two years ago wrote that their existing and pipeline projects would provide surplus power. We started building power plants, set up an agreement with KE, built transmission lines and opened up a transmission company. Our power plants were completed, but for the last four months, after signing the gas supply agreement, the SSGC has been going back and forth with us," he said.

"Our plant is ready, we need gas for testing, but they are not providing it to us," he alleged.

The chief minister said that after a discussion with the SSGC chairman in which he asked for the matter to be resolved or prepare for "drastic action", the latter sent the agreement back but did not remove clauses in the document that the provincial government had said were unacceptable to it.

"Our province produces 70 per cent of the country's gas," Shah said.

"KE is saying 'You promised us these 100MW', and it was supposed to go online by April but they still haven't been able to do it," he added.

"I am warning the SSGC that if they do not finalise our gas supply agreement by this weekend, we will shut down the gas line ... Under Article 158, the first priority of gas supply is to the province where it comes from," he said.

"If they [SSGC] do not sign the agreement, we will storm their offices and we will not let them work here. We will take over the SSGC and do it by force," he threatened, as lawmakers thumped their desks in approval.

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