CNG gets less priority in gas management plan

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet Tuesday prioritized the gas management and the CNG was placed as the last priority.

It was decided that first priority order will be given to the domestic and commercial sectors. The power & general industries sectors will be accorded second and third priority respectively. Whereas cement sector will be on fourth and CNG sectors will be on fifth priority.

The ECC also accorded its approval to marginal/standard gas fields pricing criteria and guidelines, 2013, submitted by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources. The guidelines provide for pricing structure applicable to the oil or gas reservoirs that cannot be exploited economically under the existing E&P Policies, pricing structure and available technologies.

The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources submitted Natural Gas Load Management principles for approval of the ECC. In the backdrop of load shedding in power sector the Ministry of Water & Power had requested for enhanced gas supply to power plants on SNGPL system. The ECC agreed that the gas companies should be allowed to manage gas load on their own, while observing general priority order including curtailment programme.

The ECC met under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh to discuss various agenda items.

Secretary Finance Division presented review of key economic indicators before the ECC of the Cabinet. He informed the ECC that CPI based inflation is estimated at 7.9% in December 2012 while CPI based inflation stood at 10.6% and 9.2% for India and Bangladesh respectively for the same period.

The prices of food items like tomatoes, eggs, sugar and wheat flour have declined during the last month. ECC was informed that there are sufficient stocks of wheat available for local consumption.

It was further informed that production in large scale manufacturing sector stood at 2.4% in July – November, 2012-13 as compared to 1.1% in the same period last year. Worker remittances have reached to US $7,117 million in July – December, 2012-13 as against US $6,325 million in 2011-12 showing an increase of 12.5%.

It was further informed that for the fiscal year 2012-13 (July – December), FBR provisional tax collection stood at Rs.897 billion as compared to Rs.841 billion in the same period last year, thereby posting an increase of 6.7%. The ECC was further informed that Karachi Stock Exchange emerged as best performing stock exchange in the world with 51% growth during the last year.

The ECC approved the proposal of the Ministry to set the Marginal Fields gas prices in accordance with Petroleum Exploration & Production Policy 2012 with an additional premium of US$0.25 per MMBTU for the three zones as defined in Petroleum Exploration & Production Policy 2012.

It was also decided that the government shall have the first right to purchase pipelines specification gas from the Marginal Gas Fields at a price to be determined in accordance with the above mentioned pricing formula

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Posted by Tahir Khan on Jan 29 2013. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.