Industrial zone’s power outages cut to 8 hours

KESC improves supply as it receives more gas from SSGC.

KARACHI: With the improvement of gas supply to Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) from Tuesday, the load shedding time in industrial zones of Karachi has reduced to eight hours from the massive 12-hours a day.

Talking to The Express Tribune, the spokesperson of KESC informed that the company is now receiving 140 millions cubic feet per day (mmcfd) gas, up 20 mmcfd, from Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC). Following this, KESC has reduced the load shedding by four hours to the industrial zones of Karachi.

KESC demands 180 mmcfd gas from SSGGC to completely end load shedding in Karachi but owing to a huge gap in demand and supply, Pakistan is facing severe gas shortage this winter.

According to an agreement between SSGC and KESC that was signed on Saturday night in presence of Governor Sindh, KESC had to pay Rs2 billion SSGC. When the KESC spokesperson was questioned on the payment, he said he was not sure whether his company had made the payment or not.

SSGC officials, when contacted, informed that the KESC had made payments on Tuesday but the amount was small and not equal to Rs2 billion that had been committed. The officials further confirmed that they are now giving 140 mmcfd to KESC.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2011.