Rationalising natural gas usage

We must stop the supply of gas to industries which have alternative fuel systems.


Yaqoob Khan Bangash January 16, 2012

On January 1, 2012, I woke up to no electricity, no water, and no natural gas in Lahore. While the common man in the street might no longer care about memogate, the fate of the government, or even the Taliban, he and especially she, does care about the mundane issues of gas, electricity and water provisions. The psychological effects of not having the basic things to live on are quite significant and lead to increased social strife and tensions.

Over the last decade, natural gas usage has skyrocketed in Pakistan. From a consumption of about 23.4 billion cubic metres in 2001, it increased to about 38.41 billion cubic metres in 2009. The extraction rate of our country, around 840 billion cubic metres, is so high that if we continue at this rate, our reserves will run out in twenty years. For all those people who are out on the streets protesting against the non-availability of gas for various purposes, this is the time to stop and ponder. We might not have any left very soon.

Natural gas is primarily used in households, industry and automobiles in Pakistan. When natural gas was first extracted, its primary purpose was seen as supplying the household. With electricity a scarce resource from the beginning, the government promoted gas-based stoves so as to lessen the burden on electricity consumption. Similarly, knowing that electric heaters use a lot of electricity, low cost and efficient gas-based heaters became the mainstay of Pakistani winters. The result, which was part of a pragmatic policy of making good use of a locally-available cheap resource, was that natural gas became an indispensible part of a large proportion of Pakistani households. Surplus natural gas was then provided to industry so that some industries might supplement their expensive petroleum bills with cheaper natural gas. Similarly, with the advent of compressed natural gas (CNG), people began to use this cheaper alternative to the more expensive petrol in automobiles.

However, in all this expansion of the use of natural gas, what was forgotten was that natural gas is a finite resource and our speed of consumption is fast outrunning our extraction ability. With gas being harder to import (remember the now failed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline or the several still-born projects to get gas from Central Asia?), it was only a matter of time before our consumption needs far outstripped our extraction.

Over the last couple of years, the scarcity of gas has become so acute that there are outages for over half a day in industrial and household units. In addition, CNG stations in most of the country have to take a couple of day’s holiday so as to ration the fuel.

Therefore, we must take further strong immediate measures to rationalise natural gas usage in the country. First, we must stop the supply of gas to industries which have alternative fuel systems. For example, all over the world, the cement industry uses cheap coal for production and it is only in Pakistan that even during acute shortages, the cement industry is supplied such a luxury.

If the cement industry in India can run on coal, without a hint of natural gas, we can have that too. Secondly, we must stop the fitting in of CNG kits in new automobiles. CNG might be cheaper, but with petrol available (and easily importable), we cannot use this scarce resource in this way any longer. It might be better for people to think how they can economise their petrol usage so as to bring down costs. Thirdly, we must prioritise gas provision to households over all other uses. With electricity already scarce we do not have an alternative to gas-based stoves in Pakistan at the moment. Unless we want to burn wood again, which is also not sustainable, we have to give priority to uninterrupted supply of gas to households, over and above both industry and automobiles, both of which have easily supplied alternatives. Yes, this might mean the closing of CNG stations in Pakistan, but so be it.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2012.

COMMENTS (11)

Z Ali | 12 years ago | Reply

Wrong conclusion. Gas has to be diverted to the power sector in the medium term or else susbidies will cause that sector to collapse. Longer term, power generation does need to move to coal, but without a short to medium term priority on gas this cannot and will not happen. The reason is simply that the power sector cannot create the financial resources required to make the shift to coal unless it is made profitable and stable first. This is only possible if the cost of generation is reduced dramatically from the currently unsustainable level created by over-reliance on imported furnace oil. Households should be moving to greater use of renewables such as solar for things like water heating (a huge an inefficient use of scarce gas). To drive this change, the pricing of gas needs to reflect its scarcity. The author needs to rethink his argument....

Cautious | 12 years ago | Reply

I think the author has it correct - unfortunately the cost of changing your energy source for the industrial base is enormous and something that may take yrs even if you had the money. Speaking of money -- where is Pakistan going to get the capital to make this happen? When push comes to shove it's money that is the prime issue not scarcity of fuel -- the World has plenty of gas, oil, coal readily available - all you need is money.

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