Pakistan’s Sui Southern Gas to spend US$ 270 million on pipeline repairs

Sui Southern Gas lost 4 billion rupees worth of infrastructure after floods struck the provinces of Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh on 22 July. The floodwaters have still not yet completely receded from the affected southern provinces.

“The World Bank may approve a loan of almost US$ 200 million by December this year,” Faizullah Abbasi, MD of Sui Southern Gas, said in an interview at his Karachi office yesterday. “We will also spend another 6 billion rupees ($70 million) to curtail our losses.”

Chronic gas shortages are already a major problem in Pakistan; due to the reduced supply of gas through excess demand and damaged infrastructure, electrical companies have been forced to carry out load shedding to avoid total blackouts. Currently, Pakistani companies can only provide gas resources of 3.2 billion ft³/d of gas, against demand of 3.8 billion ft³/d.

To help alleviate the problem of gas shortages, Pakistan has recently signed a deal worth US$ 1.25 billion for the construction of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to bring in gas from Iran, but this will not be completed until 2013.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/15102010/pakistan%E2%80%99s_sui_southern_gas_to_spend_us$_270_million_on_pipeline_repairs/