Secretary Power Division held a detailed meeting with the Minister and tried to convince him that the issue will be resolved soon, however, Ministry was not convinced with the arguments, the sources continued. Minister for Power also held a meeting with Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Secretary and Mian Asad Haya ud-Din and discussed ways and means to increase gas supply to the power sector. However, the issue remained unresolved.
Talking to Business Recorder, Minister for Petroleum denied his meeting with Power Minister on gas curtailment issue, saying "we discussed issues related to our constituencies" adding that available gas is being supplied to power sector. Secretary Petroleum said that "we discussed planning."
The load-shedding in parts of Punjab and Interior Sindh continues as the power shortfall exceeded 2800MW owing to smog and gas shortage.
A consumer from Muzaffargarh told Business Recorder that they are facing load shedding 15-18 hours.
However, Minister for Power Omar Ayub told this newspaper that the current disruption in power supply was witnessed as disks at Guddu and Rahim Yar Khan were ruptured, due to arching, adding that teams are still working on the transmission lines.
The Power Minister acknowledged that power sector is facing gas shortage and plants are being operated on RFO. He claimed that Discos are not taking allocated load. At 3:51PM he said that load shedding is being carried out in the domain of Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco); and load shedding is being carried out only on high loss feeders across the Discos.
In a video message, the Power Minister apologized to consumers due to current difficult situation.
He further stated that load management is necessary due to current temporary situation. The Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) authorities on Friday revealed that total production of electricity is 9800MW while demand is more than 12500MW. Earlier it was revealed that four power plants tripped due to bad weather and smog. Electricity shortage due to ongoing desilting of canals was another reason behind extended load-shedding.
The officials confirmed that the Nishat Chunian, Balloki, Guddu and Nishat power plants had tripped causing a shortfall of 2500MW. On Friday, heads of National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) and Pepco were in Lahore to deal with current power supply situation. Meanwhile, Nepra has taken serious notice of un-scheduled load shedding being carried out in different parts of the country during the last couple of days.
In this regard, Nepra has sought detailed report/reasons from NTDC about unscheduled load shedding, which began during the last few days due to which consumers are suffering badly. The Authority has advised Ministry of Energy to direct the concerned quarters to take remedial measures on this issue on a war footing.
