Winter season and upcoming gas crises.

• Author: Shaikh, Nazir Ahmed

Byline: Nazir Ahmed Shaikh

Winter season in Pakistan is knocking the door. In fact it has already started in some parts of northern areas. This year again we are expecting another gas crisis. Energy shortfall and disputes over its allocation have become regulars feature during winter season; as there is 40% increase in gas demand.

Around 40 percent of Pakistan's energy needs are being met by natural gas. The power sector consumes 43 percent of the total natural gas available in the country whereas the residential domestic customers as well as the sector and fertilizer industry are consuming 21 percent each.

Sindh is the major supplier of natural gas, followed by Balochistan. However both provinces are going to witness an acute shortage this winter. With an addition of 700,000 consumers last year, Pakistan's gas shortfall is estimated to jump by 157 percent to 3.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in fiscal year 2019-20 - almost equal to total gas supplies at present.

The estimates have been made by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) that put the gas shortfall increasing almost continuously every year to 6.6bcfd by FY2028.

The OGRA's Industry Report 2017-18, indicated that the natural gas demand-supply gap during FY2017-18 was 1,447mmcfd and that this gap was expected to rise to 3,720mmcfd by FY2019-20. The regulator put the total gas demand at about 6.9bcfd in fiscal year 2019-20 compared to total supplies of about 3.2bcfd. This demand would increase to 7.7bcfd by 2024 but domestic supplies would fall substantially to 2.3bcfd, leaving a shortfall at 5.5bcfd. The shortfall would practically be about 3.6bcfd in FY2024 as the gap would be partially met by about 1.9bcfd of imported LNG.

The domestic gas production would continue to decline from about 3.3bcfd at present to less than1.6bcfd by 2028 while the gas demand would keep going up to reach 8.3bcfd by that year. OGRA estimated that despite the induction of all the import options, including LNG, Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) and Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipelines, the total supplies would decline to 3.7bcfd by 2028, creating a net shortfall of about 4.6bcfd, more than total supplies at present.

The gap was rising because of higher consumption in almost all the major sectors particularly power, domestic, fertilizer, captive power and industry as the supplies were not keeping pace with higher demand. Both the gas utility companies added around 0.7 million domestic...