ISLAMABAD: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has asked the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to order immediate resumption of gas supply to Jamshoro Joint Venture (JJVL) Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) plant for LPG and Natural gas liquid (NGL) production to cater for the fuel needs of flood victims.
The Sindh CM, in a letter dated 30th September 2022, has requested the premier that instructions may be passed to Petroleum Division/Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) for resumption of gas supply to the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) plant of the Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL) for production of LPG and Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) which can be supplied to the flood affected people in their area of operation.
LPG plant of JJVL located in Hyderabad (Sindh) is lying shutdown since July 2020 due to non-supply of gas by SSGCL.
According to Murad Ali Shah, in the aftermath of devastating floods that have wreaked havoc in most parts of Sindh, one of the urgent requirements for the people is availability of fuel for cooking. Dry wood, which is commonly used, may no longer be easily available to the flood victims. The JJVL plant is capable of serving 25,000 homeless people per day, who have no fuel for cooking. And, they (JJVL) have requested for the restart of their (JJVL) LPG Plant for the benefit of people of Sindh.
Earlier, the Gas King of Pakistan, Iqbal Z. Ahmed, in a letter dated 15th September, 2022 to CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah had highlighted the miseries of flood victims due to food and fuel shortages. And requested to take up the matter with the PM regarding the restart of the JJVL LPG Plant for the benefit of the people of Sindh and the country after the devastations of floods.
“I am pained to see the floods devastation in Sindh. The immediate problems will be followed by food and fuel shortages”, said Iqbal Z. Ahmed in a letter to CM Sindh.
It is pertinent to mention that the SSGCL had discontinued the gas supply (8-10MMCFD) contract with JJVL at midnight on 20th June, 2020 and pushed 300 metric tons of locally produced LPG out of the system.
The SSGC management discontinued the contract following a decision made by the board of directors and deprived the country of 15% of the local LPG production while this decision caused the company (JJVL) revenue loss of billions of rupees.
SSGC had received Rs500 million in royalty on account of LPG extraction by a JJVL plant between January 2019 and March 2020. At that time the LPG production by JJVL was catering to energy needs of over 750,000 homes across Pakistan.
