Ministry seeks more gas supply to power plants

Suggests allocation for power producers from MOL’s gas field in K-P

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Water and Power has suggested that gas being discovered by Hungarian energy firm MOL in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa should be allocated to the power producers.

While backing a proposal to allocate newly discovered gas to Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), the ministry emphasised that additional gas would be utilised to improve supplies to the power producers, especially the highly efficient gas-based power plants.



MOL is expected to add 10 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) from the Tolang field in Kohat district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in June this year, according to a senior government official.



However, responding to the power ministry’s demand, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources pointed out that keeping in view the energy shortfall, gas production from the Tolang field had been proposed to be allocated to SNGPL, which would improve supply to all sectors including the power plants.

The ministry has sent a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), seeking allocation of newly discovered gas from the MOL field in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

In the province, a probe has already been going on into crude oil theft worth billions of rupees by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum for the last two years.

MOL production from the Tolang field will commence in the second quarter of this year after the installation of processing facilities.

A production profile submitted by the company showed that the Tolang field was expected to produce up to 10 mmcfd from the second quarter of 2017. The company has requested for the provision of gas to SNGPL, which is the government-nominated buyer.

The Ministry of Petroleum approved the declaration of commerciality on November 3, 2016 for the discovery in Tolang X-1 covering an area of 19.08 square kilometres in Kohat district.



MOL has applied for the grant of development and production lease and approval of the field development plan. Owing to the widening demand and supply gap in the jurisdictions covered by SNGPL and being the nearest transmission network, SNGPL has requested for the allocation of Tolang gas.

The Ministry of Petroleum asked the ECC that up to10 mmcfd from the field may be set aside for SNGPL depending on the approval of field development plan and the grant of development and production lease by the director general of petroleum concessions. Gas price will be according to the applicable petroleum policy.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2017.

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