Ogra hikes RLNG prices

ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has set the Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) price for consumers of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) at $12.538 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) and for consumers of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) at $12.9252/mmbtu for October 2018.

For last month of September, the price was $12.2027/mmbtu for SNGPL and $12.5689/mmbtu for SSGCL consumers. For October, the increase in the price is 2.75 pc for SNGPL and for consumers of the SSGCL, the gas becomes expensive by 2.83 per cent over the previous month of September.

As this super-cooled gas price is pegged with the crude oil prices, so coupled with the increased oil prices in the international market, the rupee’s fast shedding value against the greenback would not only affect the local market prices, but also the energy cost. It would also bring the balance sheets of power companies under further stress.

These prices also include charges of the LNG terminals, transmission losses, port charges and margins of the importers i.e. Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL).

These new RLNG weighted average sale prices for October 2018 have been computed, based on the eight cargoes imported during the month of which six were imported by PSO and two by PLL.

It is worth mentioning that on October 4, the government had also notified increase in natural gas prices for seven different gas consumption slabs, with 10 percent increased for lowest slab and 143 pc raise for the highest gas consuming slab effective from 27th September 2018. It is worth mentioning that the government has increased the slabs from earlier three to now seven brackets.