KARACHI
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has reserved its verdict on the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) petition for review of its estimated revenue requirement (ERR) for the financial year 2021-22.
The OGRA held a public hearing on Monday on the SSGC’s petition, seeking raise in gas tariff by Rs58.42 per mmbtu for the fiscal year 2022 amid an increase in the cost of gas and other components.
The SSGCL has projected a shortfall in revenue requirement of Rs18,399 million for FY 2021-22 and sought an increase in its average prescribed price by Rs58.42 per mmbtu effective July 01, 2021, and the petitioner has also estimated RLNG cost of services at Rs30.48 per mmbtu.
The authority admitted the petition and issued notices on November 23, 2021, to all stakeholders and held a public hearing at Karachi on 6th December 2021 under the chairmanship of Masroor Khan and two members [member (gas) and member (oil)], OGRA under section 8(2) of the OGRA Ordinance, 2002 read with Rule 4(3) of Natural Tariff Rules, 2002 to provide an opportunity to all consumers/general public and stakeholders to participate and provide their input/comment on the petition.
Meanwhile, the regulator reserved its decision which shall be passed in due course of time.
Meanwhile, the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and SSGC experts, during the last fiscal year, inspected around 13,388 town border stations (TBSs) and rectified 633 stations after finding them leaked.
Besides, the companies rectified 37,394 underground and 1,409,948 above-ground leakages and repaired 887 kilometres faulty gas pipelines, according to an official document.
The state utilities have installed Electronic Volume Corrector (EVC) meters at all industrial connections and high pressure commercial connections that calculate actual volume of gas consumption, maintain record of hourly/daily gas consumption and generate tamper alarm in case of an attempt of magnetic interference with meter or other infrastructure.
Around 1,850 out of 3,655 industrial connections have been integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) for remote monitoring of industrial consumers for timely identification of gas theft and measurement errors, if any. To control the line losses and bring down the UFG ration, the cyber locks are being installed at industrial meter stations to restrict the access of consumers to the meters and regulators to reduce chances of gas theft.
The companies are also using Laser Leak Detectors, the best available technique and gadgets, for identification of underground leakages.
