Efforts on to reduce fuel import bill

Secretary Environment says government is working on policies to substitute liquid hydrocarbons with natural gas.

ISLAMABAD: Secretary Environment Khawaja Muhammad Naeem has said that the government is working on policies to substitute liquid hydrocarbons with natural gas in a bid to slash the import bill and improve environment.

He stated this while addressing a workshop on ‘Globally accepted practices for the promotion of energy conservation and safety standards in different compressed natural gas (CNG) applications’ here on Thursday.

“Pakistan’s energy mix is highly dependent on oil and gas and it has to spend around $10-12 billion a year on import of petroleum products,” he said.

Naeem said that the government’s petroleum policy encourages use of CNG as a transport fuel to replace petrol as well as diesel, supply of natural gas to thermal power plants using furnace oil and increasing production and import of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to replace kerosene oil and firewood.

He expressed concern over energy losses and stressed the need for adopting appropriate measures to improve the situation. Naeem said that CNG is a highly environment-friendly motor fuel for improving air quality. Enercon Managing Director Faridullah Khan said that Pakistan has been lucky to have a number of natural gas discoveries over the past two to three years with output potential of more than one billion cubic feet of gas per day within the next four to five years.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2011.