Inquiry report into inflated gas bills to be submitted in CCoE meeting Wednesday: Sarwar

ISLAMABAD, Mar 26 (APP):Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan Tuesday said an inquiry report compiled by AF Ferguson, an audit company, into the inflated gas bills would be submitted in the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) meeting, scheduled for Wednesday.
During an informal interaction with journalists here, he said three inquiries, including an internal, by AF Ferguson and PM’s Inspection team, had been ordered to probe the reasons behind the inflated gas bills.
The minister said he admitted publically time and again that there were some technical faults in finalizing the gas slabs, adding that there was also a factor of increased pressure which caused inflated bills.
He expressed confidence that inflated gas bills caused by high pressure would be readjusted before June 30.
While there would be a review in gas slabs and the ministry would look into the mechanism of reimbursing inflated bills owing to the slabs, he said adding that work on slab-review had been started.
Sarwar said readings of gas pressure for the month of December, January and February would be examined to determine the pressure factor issue in inflated bills.
Commenting on media reports regarding gas companies demand submitted to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), he said these were just mere media reports and the government was making all-out efforts to put minimum burden on consumers.
Answering a query, the minister said the government was not bound to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from any specific country and it would get the commodity from other countries which would offer competitive rates.
He said concerned departments were holding inquiry into the previous government’s LNG deal and the ministry was extending all possible cooperation to them.
When asked about the much-awaited ‘good news’ of oil and gas discovery from the offshore Indus G-Block called Kekra-I, some 230-km off the Karachi coast, he said the operating companies would submit their reports in three week.
He said the drilling was in progress and there were ‘good symptoms,’ adding that present over 4,000 meters deep vertical drilling had been completed and now horizontal was underway. While, the drilling was of around 5,500, he added.
Replying to a question, the minister said a summary had been finalized for restructuring of Board of Directors (BoDs) of five public sector companies including Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited, Pakistan Petroleum Limited and Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation, which would be submitted in the next meeting of the Federal Cabinet.
Following the restructuring, the new BoDs would initiate the process of appointing their respective companies heads through a transparent manner without any political influence. The appointments would be made on merit, he added.
To another question, Sarwar said the SNGPL and SSGC suffered 11 percent and 13 percent Unaccounted for Gas (UFG) losses amounting to Rs 22 billion and Rs 26 billion respectively due to wrong strategy of the previous government.
During the last five years, UFG losses registered one percent increase every year, which caused Rs 154 loss to both the companies and increase in the gas tariff, they added.
Now, the minister said, the companies had been given the target to reduce the UFG by one per cent every year.