KESC announces 16 hours loadshedding

KESC has announced 16 hours of load shedding for the city’s industrial sector.

KARACHI: The Karachi Electric Supply Company has announced 16 hours of loadshedding for the city’s industrial sector.

According to a KESC spokesperson, the company took the decision after a rapid decrease in gas supply by the Sui Southern Gas Pipelines Limited.

Currently, the gas supply by SSGPL is 30 million cubic feet, even though they had previously agreed to supply 274 million cubic feet of gas daily.

The spokesperson added that several areas in the city are facing electricity load shedding of three to four-and-a-half hours on a daily basis.

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Earlier last year in November, KESC CEO Tabish Gauhar said that they will continue to go downhill unless enough gas is provided to KESC.

KESC received 25 per cent less gas in comparison to last year as a result of which its use of furnace oil escalated by 200,000 tonnes. The price at which gas is supplied to KESC is six times the price for fertiliser plants. But the supply has shrunk to 70 mmcfd, 75 per cent less than KESC’s need.

KESC is buying oil for Rs130 million daily. It is a problem that power in Karachi is not produced from water and we do not have any production sources except for the Kanupp power plant.

KESC has approached some international companies for help. “We plan to convert two Bin Qasim plant units to coal,” said the letter. “Both of these plants will require huge amounts of money.”

The biggest power plant (560MW) is being completed and will start production from next year but unfortunately a gas supply to this plant cannot be assured.

Gauhar said that KESC wanted to strike an agreement with Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) based on the success of deals with Wapda and PSO.