Govt diverts gas to power stations

ISLAMABAD: The government on Friday diverted more than 105 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) of natural gas from fertiliser plants and compressed natural gas (CNG) stations in an effort to help power plants increase power generation. But CNG station owners were swift to condemn the move, saying their supply had been halved and limited to just two days a week and vowing to announce a protest plan by Monday. According to the latest data from the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) available with Dawn, the overall shortage stood at 5,128MW on May 7. A marginal decline to 4,983MW occurred the next day. This was despite an addition of about 385 megawat­ts of capacity coming from hydroelectric generation, which went up from 2,668MW to 3,053MW. However, a government official said the prime minister’s intervention had borne fruit. “The Ministry of Water and Power reported that peak generation on Friday increased to 13,100MW -- an increase of 2,500MW in the system. About 1,700MW has been added through hydel power generation,” a spokesperson for the PM Secretariat claimed. The peak load generation on May 8 stood at 11,700MW, against a maximum load of 11,337MW generated a day earlier, according to the NTDC website, which relays real time data from the national grid. The spokesperson said that in line with the prime minister’s orders to add more power into the system through an additional allocation of gas and fuel, about 105MMCFD of gas had been diverted to power stations. According to the spokesperson, 610MW had been added to the grid. He said that the provision of 55MMCFD of gas to the Kapco plant had added 242MW to the grid, 20MMCFD to the Faisalabad plant added 65MW and an additional 30MMCFD to the Kotri plant yielded an increase of 93MW. In addition, improved furnace oil supply to the Jamshoro and Muzaffargarh power plants also increased generation by 60MW and 150MW respectively. Another official said that in total about 130MMCFD of gas had been diverted from CNG stations and fertiliser plants to the power sector. In doing so, however, the government had reduced the availability of gas to CNG pumps from 72 hours a week to 48 hours a week, according the All Pakistan CNG Association’s Ghiyas Paracha. Paracha told Dawn the CNG sector had been told that it would get gas for 24 hours on Wednesday and 24 hours on Sunday, but the Sui Northern was claiming a supply cut of only 16-20 per cent. He said the Supreme Court had directed the government on Dec 9 to divert gas from captive power plants (CPPs) being used by 121 influential industrialists -- which were consuming 111MMCFD of gas -- instead of affecting consumers on the national grid and increasing gas prices of CPPs to the level of furnace oil. The government seemed to be supporting the CPPs which had the option of using alternative fuels. On the contrary, both the CNG and fertiliser industry could not fall back on any alternative fuel. The CNG association was considering agitation against the decision, but did not want to risk being clubbed together with political movements and hence would take a decision on Monday after holding talks with the petroleum minister, he said.