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Electricity shortfall set to worsen in coming days

ISLAMABAD - Trader, labour and home consumers took out processions and burned offices of power distribution companies in major cities to protest against scheduled and unscheduled outages ranging from 12 to 18 hours.

By Afzal Khan

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Published: Sat 30 Apr 2011, 12:02 AM

Last updated: Wed 1 Jul 2020, 12:47 PM

The electricity shortfall touched 7,000MW on Thursday with Pakistan State Oil informing power generation companies about a further reduction in furnace oil supplies. The furnace oil stocks of PSO are reported to have fallen to 30,000 tonnes and a ship carrying the fuel is due on May 1.
Mobs have attacked offices of power generation companies in Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Multan burning furniture, documents during the past three days.
The protesters said power outages have shut businesses and factories rendering the labour unemployed. In residential areas outages have coincided with the rising tempetatures driving people to come out on streets. In rural areas the loadshedding has lasted nearly 20 hours. The state-run PSO informed Pakistan Electric Power Company that it was cutting oil supplies to the power sector by about half (to 10,000 tonnes from 19,000 tonnes) for the next three days. The daily furnace oil requirement of the sector is 36,000 tonnes.
If the current heat spell continues, the electricity shortfall will rise correspondingly and most parts of the country will be without electricity for around 18 hours a day.
“The emerging situation is disastrous, because it will turn the entire generation plan topsy-turvy. There is no way Pepco can absorb that kind of reduction in oil supplies without plunging the country into darkness.
mafzalkhan@yahoo.com

• Pakistan