SSGC spokesperson Inayatullah Ismail said that “three gas fields operated by the company namely Bhit, Zamzama and Badin had developed technical faults on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.” A company engineering team did manage to restore supply from the Bhit gas field by Thursday, but supply from the two other fields could not be restored till the filing of this report on Friday night.
Ismail also admitted that gas supply to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) had remained limited to about 50 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) since Thursday.
In a meeting of the cabinet committee on power crisis held on July 29, 2009, the gas distributor had said that KESC would receive 276 mmcfd of gas. In a judgement issued on October 8 last year, the Sindh High Court had also directed SSGC to honour the commitment.
KESC, the SITE Association of Trade and Industry and others have filed a petition against the gas company as it has so far been unable to restore supply to 276 mmcfd to the electricity distributor.
“Supply of gas to residential users will be restored to normal levels as soon as the faults at the two gas fields are fixed and they are brought back online. However, the restoration of supply to the power distributor may take more time,” said Ismail.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 8th, 2011.
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