HASSAN ABBAS

LAHORE: The Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Ltd (SNGPL) has requested Ogra to increase the quota of domestic connections from 300,000 to 500,000.

Talking to media here on Monday, Managing Director SNGPL Amjad Latif said, "Due to constraints we were unable to give connections but now we have increased manpower and resources to give 0.5 million domestic connections in a year."

Latif said the company has drastically reduced the UFG by 1.83 percent, last year line loses of the company were 10.98 percent while this year the line loses of the company were brought down to 9.14 percent.

The company has increased vigilance on the lines supplying gas to commercial, industrial and domestic consumers.

He said that in our domestic sector there is no shortage of gas but we increase our demand in winter by switching on geysers and heaters. He said we can provide gas to the industry by minimizing the use of geysers and heaters. "We should not use gas on the expanse of industry," Amjad said.

He said that the company is working on 1000 km LNG pipeline on fast track basis and expressed his hope that pipe line will be completed very soon.

Ogra heard a petition filed by the SNGPL for Estimated Revenue Requirement (ERR) for the financial year 2016-17 on Monday. The SNGPL proposed decrease in gas tariff by Rs 59.70 MMBTU in each category of normal consumers after giving impact of last years determined shortfall of Rs 46,794 million and an increase of Rs 75.20 MMBTU for LNG based consumers in line with Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) decision dated April 14, 2016. The company argued that the above mentioned decrease does not include the already determined short fall of Rs 46, 794 million. If this shortfall is included in the above surplus then there will be a shortfall of Rs 21, 783 million for normal consumers.

Chairperson Ogra Uzma Adil Khan while talking to media appreciated that SNGPL has voluntarily requested the authority for the reduction of gas prices. She said that authority will take decision after examining the petition and listening to the stakeholders and then the authority will determine the price on merit. She said that reason behind SNGPL's petition of deceasing the gas price is that oil prices in the world have decreased and the gas prices are linked with oil prices.

She said common consumer will not be affected by increase in LNG price. She appreciated the SNGPL for decreasing UFG, adding that these are doable things, if you have will, you can do everything.