Sindh industries withdraw strike call for next week

KCCI former chief says industrialists will observe strike if SSGC does not restore gas supply

KARACHI: Sindh’s industries have conditionally withdrawn their shutter-down strike call given for Monday after the public gas utility assured them of supply of agreed fuel quantity to captive power plants from next week.

“If SSGC (Sui Southern Gas Company) does not fulfill its promise of restoring gas supply from Monday morning, then we will stage the shutter-down strike,” Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) former president Zubair Motiwala told The Express Tribune on Saturday.

“We will review the gas supply situation at around 11am on Monday,” said Motiwala, after attending a two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting with SSGC Managing Director Muhammad Amin Rajput and his team at the utility’s head office in Karachi.

He led the industrialists’ delegation to SSGC to discuss available options to end a three-week-long gas blackout in the industries. SSGC also set some conditions for restoring gas supply to the industries.

It asked the industrialists to voluntarily keep their gas-run captive power plants switched off on Sunday (today). Otherwise, they would continue to face gas load-shedding, said an SSGC official.

“Gas pressure at our end will suggest whether the industries have used the gas on Sunday or not,” the official said, adding, “the increase in gas pressure will allow us to provide the promised volume to the industries from Monday onwards and for six days (Monday to Saturday) a week.”

Motiwala said they had agreed on the SSGC condition. “We have circulated (a notification) among the industrialists to keep their gas-based captive power plants shut on Sunday,” he said.

SSGC supplies 100-150 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas to the captive power plants installed outside or within industrial units.

The other day, Federal Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan had said gas volumes for the captive power plants would remain low at 50% for three months - December to February - of winter. “Sunday will remain a gas holiday for the captive power plants (in Sindh),” he said.

The minister had said they would never carry out load-shedding of gas, electricity and other utilities for the five zero-rated export-focused industries as they were the engine of growth in exports.

“Exports have dropped, imports have surged, factories have closed down and unemployment has gone high,” Khan said.

Motiwala and the SSGC official, however, differed on the supply of gas to the five zero-rated industries in the province.

“The zero-rated export-based industries are also among those (industrial units) facing gas load-shedding seven days a week and 24 hours a day,” Motiwala remarked.

However, the SSGC official claimed, “The export-based industries have continuously been provided gas round the clock, including on Sundays.”

“They (export sector) stand among top priority gas consumers…whenever we face gas shortfall from fields, captive power plants and CNG fuel stations are the ones who face load-shedding,” he said.

Industrial units in the SITE Karachi zone were alone bearing a loss of Rs2.5 billion a day due to the gas load-shedding, Motiwala, who is also a former president of the SITE Association of Industry, said.

Losses surged to around Rs5 billion a day, if other industries in the city of ports were taken into account, he claimed.

Meeting fails

KCCI President Junaid Ismail Makda, however, said the meeting between SSGC and industrialists ended inconclusively. “Talks have failed,” he said.

Meeting participants reached no concrete agreement to end the gas load-shedding. “We are still living in an uncertain situation,” Makda said.

Moreover, the federal minister for petroleum had claimed to have addressed the then seven-day gas crisis at Sindh’s industrial zones and CNG fuel stations two weeks ago. However, the gas crisis persisted till today.

The SSGC official said they were facing a shortfall of around 300-400 mmfcd as the demand stood at 1,500-1,600 mmcfd against supply of around 1,200 mmcfd.

He said industries would receive more than the agreed quantity for one month from January 7, 2019 as fertiliser manufacturers on the SSGC network would shut down their plants for overhaul.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2018.

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