SSGC extends CNG suspension by 24 hours

CNG stations have been closed in the city since Tuesday

KARACHI: As the natural gas crisis in the province worsens, the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) announced the suspension of the supply of CNG to gas filling stations for a further 24 hours.

According to SSGC representatives, the company is facing severe difficulties in fulfilling the needs of domestic consumers and the industrial sector due to extremely low pressure of gas in its system. In order to meet the requirements of domestic consumers, the supply of CNG to filling stations has been suspended from Friday 8am to Saturday (today) 8am.

The supply of CNG in Karachi had already been suspended from 2pm on Tuesday and was scheduled to reopen on Friday morning. The extension of the CNG outage means that CNG stations will be closed for 80 hours until the supply is restored on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Murtaza Wahab, the adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on the environment, coastal development and law, maintained that Sindh was deliberately being deprived of its share of natural gas.

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Even though 70 per cent of the country's natural gas is collected from Sindh, the province is being punished for its natural resources, he claimed.

He said that stoves in houses across Sindh had cooled down, but a 200 per cent increase in gas prices was still being proposed. "Karachi is the economic hub of Pakistan, but today, its citizens are facing deprivation, domestic and industrial consumers are worried and the transportation system has collapsed," he stated.

Censuring the federal government, Wahab added that it appeared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had been voted in for the destruction of the country rather than driving change in it. He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had dreamed of lifting the country up but his interpretation of it was presenting "a terrifying scenario."

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2019.