CNG stations shut down in Karachi
The gas supply on Wednesday to Friday would also remain suspended.
KARACHI (Dunya News) - According to the schedule issued by Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), the CNG stations in Karachi and Sindh would remain closed from Monday 8am to Tuesday 8am.
The gas supply on Wednesday to Friday would also remain suspended. There were long queues seen at filling stations prior to the shut down.
The crisis is a symptom of a much larger problem destined to cause drivers even greater pain in the future: Pakistan s demand for natural gas, and other forms of energy, is quickly outstripping supply.
"We have this problem that is growing bigger and bigger every year," said, a Pakistani business journalist who s been following the natural gas crisis closely. "Each of the big consumers of natural gas is now vying with each other."
The government of former President Pervez Musharraf began promoting the use of compressed natural gas, or CNG, in private vehicles nearly a decade ago. The idea was to reduce the money the government spent on buying oil internationally and instead relies on Pakistan s domestic natural gas reserves.
So the previous government kept the price of CNG low, promoted the importation of equipment for cars to run on natural gas and rapidly gave out licenses to open stations. The use of CNG has an added benefit of being less polluting, since it tends to burn cleaner than gasoline.
Unfortunately for the current government, the policy was incredibly successful — and is unsustainable. Pakistan has 3.5 million private vehicles running on CNG, more than 80 per cent of vehicles in the country and more than any other country in the world. But Pakistan s gas supplies can t support this demand while also feeding power plants, fertilizer companies and other businesses that rely on the fuel.
