SSGC’s commercial gas consumers stage protest

KARACHI: CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) dealers and transporters at large on Wednesday staged a protest sit-in outside Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) head office against a constant suspension in supply, which they said had brought their businesses to a grinding halt.

Gas supply in Sindh has been patchy with long delays between CNG and domestic supply. Supply to CNG stations, which was to continue for 12 hours on Tuesday, was cut off after eight hours by the SSGC, citing low gas pressure.

Transporters were frustrated as unavailability of gas was forcing them out of business, while domestic consumers were agitated as they were unable to cook food due to this long-duration supply suspension.

The CNG Association was demanding the SSGC to reconsider the closure schedule and increase the supply volumes at CNG outlets. When contacted, the SSGC management said the currently gas supply situation was quite grim due to short supplies from gas fields due to fast depleting gas reserves.

The SSGC in a statement said it was already facing shortage of gas and this demand-and-supply gap had further widened following a spike in demand from domestic sector in the current extreme cold weather.

The company was following the ECC (Economic Coordination Committee) approved gas load management plan that placed CNG at the end of the pecking order, the statement said adding that due to the serious demand-supply situation, the SSGC had to curtail gas to all sectors including CNG.

“Further the current system position has been explained to CNG Association and they have been assured that the SSGC will still do everything possible to restore gas supply to CNG sector since it is empathetic towards its concerns yet it has to follow the load management plan that prefers providing gas to sectors that do not have access to alternative fuel,” the statement said.

The SSGC also clarified that in the current situation it would be able only to supply gas to CNG sector on Sundays and further evaluate the position through continuous monitoring and if the situation improved, gas to CNG sector would be restored accordingly.