ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: The LPG Association of Pakistan on Friday said marketing companies of liquefied petroleum gas have earned Rs82.89 billion extra under the pretext of artificial shortages from Dec 2004 to 2008.

During the last two years (2006-08), the LPG producers, on the other hand, managed to pocket more than Rs18 billion additional profits by overcharging consumers across the country.

This was stated by LPG Association chairman Mohammad Irfan Khokhar while addressing a news conference here on Friday. He alleged that the producers and distributors had formed cartels and were selling a kilogramme of LPG at as high as Rs150 in some remote areas and Rs120-130 in cities compared to the official price of Rs53 a kg.

The LPG sector was deregulated and was not being controlled by the government, but the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) had a clear mandate to take action against black marketers of any petroleum product, including the LPG in any part of the country.

Mr Khokhar said these days a cylinder (11.8kg) of locally produced LPG was being sold at over Rs900 in cities and more than Rs1,100 in remote areas. The official rate of locally produced LPG was Rs617 a cylinder.

The official price of imported LPG was Rs753 a cylinder. However, when it comes to the market, the consumers do not know whether they are buying the locally produced LPG or the imported one and there are no two prices in effect in the market, he said. In 2006, imported LPG constituted only 5 per cent of the total local consumption. The ratio of imported LPG increased to 6.9 per cent in 2007 but dropped to 4.5 per cent last year.

According to the association, despite the fact that locally produced LPG constituted 94 to 96 per cent of the local consumption but in the market one could hardly note any difference between the prices of locally produced and imported LPG.

Thirty marketing companies, which were awarded LPG quotas, had monopolised the whole market. The remaining 46 companies were at the mercy of the powerful 30, Mr Khokhar said.

He said there were nine LPG producer companies in Pakistan, which could be easily checked by Ogra, but it seemed that the government did not want to take any action to save consumers from fleecing at the hands of marketing and producing companies.

The association demanded President Asif Zardari to form a national LPG price control committee to check the prices of LPG, which had witnessed 406 per cent increase in the last eight years.

It said the profiteering by producers and marketing companies were hitting the LPG consumers hard, particularly the poor rickshaw and taxi drivers.

The association also demanded the government to allow the duty-free import of LPG for its use in generation of cheap electricity.