SSGC urged to make good on promise of two-day closures

Karachi
Transporters, CNG associations and consumer rights groups have called for an immediate restoration of two-day closure of CNG stations which used to be in place earlier, as per a consent letter issued by the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) last year on November 15.
In a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday, the All Pakistan CNG Association, Karachi Transport Ittehad, Sindh CNG Association and Consumer Rights Protection Council presented their charter of demands and asked for its acceptance within 10 days.
If the SSGC failed to accept the demands, the associations stated to claim their right to a peaceful protest outside the gas company’s head office on Monday, March 30.
Speaking on behalf of all those present, the president of All Pakistan CNG Association, Shabbir Sulemanjee, said the association had last year in November announced its plan to protest earlier when the SSGC officials had failed to keep their promises.
He said a peaceful demonstration was successfully held outside the SSGC office in Hyderabad after which the utility’s managing director had called upon an urgent meeting with the delegation of All Pakistan CNG Association.
He said the negotiations were followed by the issuance of a letter from the office of SSGC managing director on November 15, 2014, stating that the gas utility will shut CNG for three days a week, but only if it was facing a crisis of supply in winter. Otherwise, the company will restore the two-day shutdown schedule.
However, said Sulemanjee, four months have passed since the letter was issued and instead of reverting to the previous schedule of two-day shutdowns, the SSGC on account of its unprofessional attitude has been carrying out four-day closures every week, with very low pressure of CNG in the remaining days.
The second most important demand of CNG associations and transporters, is immediate legal clarification on the sartorial priority notification in the light of a he

recent judgment passed by the Islamabad High Court (vide WP No 630 of 2013), declaring the present notification as “unconstitutional” and restoring the Gas Load Management Policy of 2005 under which both CNG and general industries are placed at priority No 4 instead of 6, Sulemanjee explained.
“We demand an immediate embargo and strict action against illegal CNG compressors and storage cascades being used in other sectors, so that the alarming increase in the Unaccounted for Gas (UFG) could be curbed,” he said. “All CNG stations operating in the SITE Area should be converted into a dedicated gas pipeline network in order to avoid extreme low pressures caused by the high number CNG stations in that locality.”
The organisations also demanded the withdrawal of the proposal of increasing gas tariff for the CNG Sector with effect from April 1, 2015.
He pointed out that the prices of crude oil in the international market had fallen drastically from $120 per barrel to $45 per barrel. “Thus, the basic determination of the gas tariff is also linked with the international crude oil prices,” he said.
He said as per the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority Ordinance, the revised notification of gas tariff can be issued twice a year, either on January 1 or July 1 of the fiscal year. Keeping this in mind, said Sulemanjee, there seems to be no justification to increase the CNG tariff. It should be reduced in light of the present scenario of low crude oil prices in the international market.
He was of the view that the current proposal to increase the gas prices and unusual load shedding for CNG sector in Sindh was being done with dubious intentions for introducing LNG and eliminating CNG as a fuel. When there will be no difference between the prices of CNG and petrol, the consumer will abandon gas as a fuel.
In 2003, the Supreme Court of Pakistan following a suo-moto notice had ordered to convert all public transport vehicles from diesel to CNG, to curb the rising pollution.
This decision was endorsed by the environmental commission, who issued a similar directive.
The CNG sector in Sindh consumes only two percent of the total gas consumption of the country and contributes multiple times in terms of revenue to the national exchequer, by direct and indirect employment of around 400,000 people.