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No gas loadshedding for domestic consumers, says Naveed

LAHORE: There will be no gas loadshedding for domestic consum-ers but the industrial sector will have to bear loadshedding strictly according to the load management plan which will be announced next week after taking the stakeholders into confidence.

This load management plan will be finalised after meeting of Eco-nomic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) scheduled to be held next week, said Federal Minister for Petroleum & Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar while briefing media after his meeting with the representatives of CNG Association and All Pakistan Textile Mills Association at SNGPL office on Monday.

He said there will be no discrimination in gas loadshedding and it will be for the whole country. He dispelled this impression that gas loadshedding was going on only in Punjab. He admitted that there is a shortfall because of the maintenance of Zamzama gas field. He said that schedule of the winter gas loadshedding, commencing from November 14 till March 15, will be announced after complet-ing the consultation with the stake holders.

Naveed Qamar said that they treat all the industrial consumers equally, however, the priority is domestic customers and that's why there will be no loadshedding for them. While answering question about gas supply to the power sector, he said that the agreement with the Independent Power Producers is for nine months and the agreement with the IPPs is until November 30. He said there priority is the consumers who have inked 12-month agreement with them.

He said work on Pak-Iran gas pipeline has been started and the consultant has been appointed for the development of physical structure. "We have to complete this project before end of 2014 otherwise we will have to pay the penalties," he added.

He said we will get gas from Turkmenistan in 2015. While advocat-ing the use of LNG, he said it is the only short-term measure we have to adopt to overcome the gas loadshedding. He said they re-spect the decision of the Supreme Court on LNG import and we are preparing a new report in which we are working on the objections raised by the court. He said that report on LNG will be submitted in the ECC meeting very soon.