Furnace oil-based power plants made operational

ISLAMABAD: In a new development, the Power Division has started generating costly electricity through furnace based power plants in winter season to end the loadshedding in Punjab on account of halt in supply of RLNG because of rupture appeared in the gas pipeline.

“Yes, we used the local furnace oil for generating the electricity to minimise the loadshedding as RLNG was not available for electricity generation on account of rupture in RLNG pipeline,” a senior official of Power Division confirmed to The News.

“We made functional the furnace oil based power plants of Hubco, Jamshoro and Muzaffargarh which are still running and since the RLNG supply has restored and on Thursday morning, RLNG power plants at Balluki and Haveli Badur Shah have been provided each 90 mmcfd re-gasified LNG and they also started generating electricity. Once the whole system is ramped up, Power Division will halt the costly electricity generation through furnace oil based power houses.”

The official said that since country has the option to generate electricity on furnace oil, rather it is costly one and it is ranked at the last in the list of economic merit order, when comparatively cheaper option of power generation on RLNG was not available and masses were suffering so Power Division opted the option of costly one to end the loadshedding in the country.

It is pertinent to mention that government has already notified ban on import of furnace oil for power generation and has also decided that local furnace oil will be utilised when the demand of the electricity will increase manifold in the summer season. But under the latest but rare scenario in ongoing winter season, a different situation has emerged as RLNG supply has been disconnected to Punjab because of the rupture appeared in the RLNG pipeline so gas supply to industry, CNG and power houses in Punjab got halted. In the severe cold, people were facing massive loadshedding so Power Division decided to make furnace oil based power plants operational till the full restoration of RLNG based power plant.