Lahore: A technical fault developed at the LNG terminal owned by Engro Corporation on Wednesday that caused the LNG supply to be temporarily suspended to Punjab’s CNG stations, industrial units and power plants.
Due to this technical fault, the power supply situation in Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) worsened as the shortfall crossed the 1,400MW as a result of increase in demand which reached to 4,632MW. Hence, LESCO started carrying out loadshedding of 6-8 hours in urban areas and 8-10 hours in rural jurisdictions.
The LNG supply disruption caused two government owned power plants in Faisalabad having a combined capacity of 241 MW, alongside 157MW Fauji-Kabirwala and 412MW Rousch to suspend their operations. This cascaded into an increase in deficit of 800MW reaching 4,500MW on Tuesday.
This fault at the LNG terminal occurred as a result of its monthly check-up and surfaced up while restarting it. CEO OF ETPL and Engro Vopak Terminal Ltd, Jahangir Piracha said “As we were ramping up [the system], one of the pumps had a very abnormal sort of sound…so we ramped it up to half capacity to 300 [mmcfd].” The fault is expected to be rectified by 10 am on Wednesday and supplies are expected to resume as per normal after that.
Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) was also partially impacted by this disruption as it was only receiving 300 MMCFD of RLNG gas supply against the total of 650 MMCFD. A spokesman for the company confirmed that the gas supply to the industrial and CNG sector had been suspended as a result of this fault. He said “Consequent upon disruption of RLNG supplies due to technical problems at Engro LNG terminal and annual turnaround of MOL plant, we are facing severe shortfall and low pressures on our system.”
According to SNGPL Managing Director, the company was receiving 400 MMCFD of RLNG and due to the fault at the terminal a shortfall of 250MMCFD was being experienced. He added that because of system maintenance 150MMCFD was also not available hence contributing to the increase in shortfall to 400 MMCFD. LNG supply to Haveli Bahadur Shah, Nandipur and Bhikki power plants were continuing as normal, he reiterated.
