A darkness alert

For the second time in a month, the nation is facing widespread power outages because of difficulties in the supply of natural gas that has precipitated the shutdown of power plants taking 3,000MWs off the national grid. Added to this is the fact that a majority of furnace-oil based generators do not have the fuel they need to immediately start producing electricity — this despite anecdotal reports that there are five tankers lying off Karachi port waiting to discharge their cargo. The prime minister made an intervention on 27^th October that is today having serious knock-on effects. He ordered that officials managing the supply chain increase the consumption of imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and trouble has swiftly followed.

The power companies are having difficulty in increasing supplies which in turn leads to difficulty in transmission lines and grid stations that struggle to maintain an even current. All the principal natural-gas powered stations have been withdrawn from service on 24^th November and cannot reasonably be expected to be online again till November 27^th — and nobody is predicting uninterrupted coverage in that period. The irony is that consumption is at a very low point with demand for 10,000MW to 11,000MW against a theoretically available capacity of 25,000MW. A truly shambolic state of affairs.

Achieving a balanced power supply at a time when the system is over-capacity ought not to be rocket science. Once again it is the consumer that carries the burden of serial incompetence by the government and its agencies and officials. It should be as clear as daylight that ordering a switch in supplies at the drop of a hat was not in the interest of anybody, and not only the producers and suppliers that face an impossible task. Managing the supply chain, be it furnace oils, natural or imported LNG ought to be a routine systematised task. It will be recalled that there was a similar situation that led to outages between 3^rd and 7^th November in large parts of Punjab province and Pakistan. It is now at least possible that there will be a re-run of daily darkness. And will anybody be accountable? Of course not.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2017.

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