Tawanai

The recent floods have not only caused loss to human lives and infrastructure but the water lost was also worth to irrigate 40 million acre of land. Following excerpt gives the details:

Pakistan lost water worth Rs240 billion due to lack of dams and water reservoirs in the country.

Chairman Fauji Fertilizer Company talking to media men said a quantity of water needed for irrigating 40 million acres land has been wasted. He said Rs6 billion worth of water is required for irrigating 1 million acres land.

According to economic experts, due to absence of political harmony the country not only faced worst ever floods but also failed to store water worth Rs240 billion.

Environment, Infrastructure, Pakistan, Water flood, Irrigation, Loss, Pakistan, Water

In our last post, we highlighted the lack of control of OGRA over the LPG price dynamics. Now, OGRA has taken notice of the situation and have warned all LPG marketing companies to refrain from overcharging practices and follows the authority fixed prices. This dawn news report gives the details:

Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority on Friday fixed the maximum consumer price for liquefied petroleum at Rs95 per kg and issued stern warning to LPG marketing companies involved in price manipulation.

The authority fixed the maximum reasonable consumer price of locally produced LPG at Rs80 per kg and for imported LPG at Rs95 per kg. It also determined the price for mix of local and imported LPG at Rs82.71 kg.

The prices are applicable for all the urban and rural areas of the country except AJK, Fata and Gilgit-Baltistan where additional Rs30 for an 11.8-kg cylinder may be added to each type of LPG due to higher transportation cost.

Taking advantage of the leniency of the regulator, the LPG marketing companies and LPG distributors are selling the fuel at exorbitant rates up to Rs135 per kg in some parts of the country.

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Gas, LPG, OGRA, Pakistan LPG, ogra, Pakistan, prices

The unjustified LPG price hike is now in notice of the Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals and they have question OGRA (the regulatory) authority on its failure to control the price in the domestic market. The report from Business Recorder gives the details.

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources has expressed serious reservations over the failure of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) in playing its due role for controlling LPG prices in the domestic market. Sources revealed to the Business Recorder that the Ministry in a strongly worded letter to Ogra has directed the authority to play its due role and take action against LPG marketing companies that are involved in inflate increase in LPG prices.

According to existing LPG policy, LPG companies are allowed to charge LPG prices that do not exceed the Saudi Aramco Contract Price (CP). “But Ogra has let LPG marketing companies raise the gas price many times during the month of Ramzan,” they said. Petroleum Ministry officials said that delay by Ogra in taking action against LPG marketing companies had raised questions about its role. The role of Ministry of Petroleum is to formulate policies whereas Ogra is a regulator and its responsibility is to ensure a price that does not exceed CP.

When contacted, Executive Director (Operations) Ogra, Sarmad Aslam confirmed that Ogra had received a letter from Ministry of Petroleum and would give its response soon. He said that due to closure of Parco refinery, country was facing LPG shortfall leading to a hike in its price. He maintained that Parco would take around 6-7 days to resume operation. He claimed that Authority had started action against undue hike in LPG prices from the weekend just past.

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Consumers, LPG, OGRA, Pakistan, Policy LPG, Ministry, ogra

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) allowed on Tuesday a 26 paisa per unit increase in power tariff for consumers of nine distribution companies of Wapda from August 31 on account of monthly fuel cost adjustment.

A Nepra official told Dawn that power companies had sought an increase of 52 paisa per unit under the fuel adjustment formula for July.

But the power regulator allowed an increase 26 paisa and turned down the rest sought on account of system losses, late payments and overall circular debt.

The official said that Nepra had sent its determination to the federal government for notification. The new tariff will be recovered from consumers in the next billing month. The new tariff will not apply to KESC whose fuel-based tariff adjustment will be made separately.

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Electricity, Energy, KESC, Pakistan, WAPDA electricity, KESC, nepra, power, WAPDA

The government is facing difficulties in unloading oil consignments from ships because of port congestion and infrastructure limitations, resulting in supply shortages in flood affected areas of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Northern parts of the country.

Sources in the petroleum ministry told Dawn on Monday that the country’s oil consumption had dropped by about 50 per cent after the recent floods as transport activities had substantially slumped because of damage caused to the road infrastructure.

They said the stocks of petroleum products diesel, furnace oil and petrol were enough for more than 28 days of the country’s usual requirement but transportation problems were resulting in short supplies in many parts of the country, particularly in Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan.

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Energy, Events, Fuel, Infrastructure, Pakistan, Petrol flood, Fuel, Petroleum

In our last post on the Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG); we discussed that LPG when mixed with air in right proportion, gives a perfect replacement for Natural Gas. While mentioning, the potential opportunities SNG can provide we said that Industries can use it as an alternate/back-up gas during the Natural Gas (NG) shutdown or curtailments times. In this post we shall discuss the importance of this alternate gas for industries and its need in the coming times.

In Pakistan, NG crisis are no different than energy crisis. Earlier we had NG shutdown hours/days only in winters, now we even have them in summers. With this happening it is easily predicted that in coming times or not thinking of far in the coming winters the NG shortage is going to get worst.

Managing Director Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Dr Faiz Ullah Abbasi, has affirmed this while addressing a recent business gathering. He has said the at the problems regarding the supply of gas in the coming winter would become more serious as compared to the last year, as the demand and supply gap has started to widen.

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Energy, Gas, Infrastructure, Pakistan, SNG government, Industries, Natural gas, OGDC, ogra, Pakistan, PARCO, SNG, SNGPL, SSGC, Sythetic

When we have clear trade embargoes for no trade with Israel. This comes as an astonishment that how can the state oil company PSO go about a deal with an Israel based company. The excerpt from Dawn has more detail:

The Pakistan State Oil, a government-run oil company, has awarded a contact to an Israeli-based firm, Turpak-Orpak, despite the government’s ban on any kind of trade or agreement with an Israeli entity.

The matter was taken up by the Senate Standing Committee on Interior at its meeting on Monday.

The committee did not only deal with the matter of awarding a contract to any Israeli firm but also expressed doubts over the operation of the company close to sensitive installations in the country.

“It is an Israeli military establishment-funded company which is being headed by a military general,” committee’s Chairman Senator Talha Mehmood told Dawn.

“We have learnt that the company had installed its equipment close to sensitive installations and, therefore, I have ordered an inspection of the equipment to ascertain whether they are being used for monitoring purpose,” the senator said.

Mr Talha said that under SRO 76 (1) issued on Sept 2009, no Israeli company could operate in the country, but the PSO management awarded the contract to the firm in 2008.

PSO officials who attended the meeting said the contract had been awarded by the previous management and they had nothing to do with it.

Read more: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-pso-grants-contract-to-israeli-firm-080-hh-10

PSO, Pakistan Israel, oil, Pakistan, PSO, Trade

The state oil company, PSO already in litigation along with Petrosin over the auto-gas deal, it has now being disclosed by the company MD that a power group is involved in supply scams involving selling of cheap oil ahead of monthly price adjustments.

Here is an excerpt that appeared in Dawn News today.

A fresh scam in the oil supply chain surfaced on Thursday when the management of state-run Pakistan State Oil (PSO) officially confirmed that a powerful group in the company was involved in selling cheap oil to influential dealers ahead of monthly price adjustments to enable them to charge higher rates from consumers.

As the managing director of the country’s largest oil supplier, Mr Irfan Qureshi, broke the news before the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources, the committee’s chairman, Shaikh Waqas Akram, demanded an inquiry and its report within a week to identify officials involved in manipulating the supply chain to the benefit of dealers.

Mr Qureshi told the committee that PSO officials were found providing petroleum products to dealers on credit at the end of each month in anticipation of an increase in prices to earn a windfall at the cost of PSO. He said two officials had been held accountable for being involved in the malpractices and an inquiry had been in progress since April.

He said the practice had been going on for years and had now been brought to an end. He said six officials at the Lalpir depot had been suspended for embezzling Rs100 million. He said whenever the PSO took action against corrupt officials, courts reinstated them.

Read more: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/powerful-group-in-pso-involved-in-supply-scams-370

Fuel, Infrastructure, Oil, PSO, Pakistan oil, prices, PSO, scam, supply

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Petrosin, a Singapore-based company, have entered into a legal battle over scrapping of Rs 10 billion LPG sale contract between the two parties, as the latter has got a stay order from Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench, Business Recorder has learnt.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) Board of Management (BoM) had rescinded its earlier decision of awarding a contract to Petrosin in last week of April for setting up 400 LPG auto-gas stations across the country. The sources said the PSO’s board had earlier approved the deal through a majority vote with Petrosin.

The PSO’s BoM recently gave the go ahead to the management to invite parties for prequalification to participate in the project of LPG supply to the entire net of the autostations. According to sources, Rawalpindi Bench of LHC has issued stay order directing PSO not to proceed with the process of LPG deal as per advertisement given in newspapers seeking parties for pre-qualification till the final verdict of the court. Sources said that the court would resume hearing of the case today (Friday).
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Auto-Gas, LPG, PSO, Pakistan AG, Auto-Gas, LPG, PSO

The World Bank will provide $250 million for ‘Natural Gas Production Enhancement and Efficiency Project’ to increase availability and affordability of electricity by improving access to natural gas fuel for power generation through gas sector efficiency enhancements.

According to an updated project report of World Bank, the proposed project would comprise design and implementation of energy sector policy, regulatory, institutional and investment measures to reduce unaccounted-for gas (UFG) from the current level of about 8 percent to closer to international norms (around 1 percent), which would involve: (a) pipeline replacement to eliminate leakages and reduce technical losses; and (b) modernised metering and control systems. The investment component may approximately cut UFG in half, or better, depending on the project’s impact on gas theft.

It would reduce residential consumers’ gas consumption through pilot projects to replace old gas appliances (space heating and/or hot water) that have low efficiency (20-30 percent) with modern, efficient appliances (efficiency 50-70 percent), the report said.

To address the thermal efficiency issue concerning appliances in a broad way with impact beyond the pilot, it would design a gas usage optimisation strategy based on a combination of national priorities and economic costs and benefits, implementation efficiency, and conservation measures. It would enhance institutional capacity in petroleum sector governance, including the regulatory authority (Ogra).

Energy, Investment, Natural Gas, Pakistan