Petrol crunch hits City

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

LAHORE - The constant petroleum shortage, persistent following the unprecedented flood in the country, Wednesday reached its climax in the provincial capital, forcing the motorists to wait in long queues for a long time to fill their tanks of vehicles.
The petrol pumps and CNG stations in the city experienced long queues as petrol shortage along with the suspension of the gas supply hit the city. However, the gas supply was restored to the CNG stations at around 1pm which remained shut from early morning due to repair work at the Qadirpur Gas Filed in Sindh.
The worried motorists gathered around the selected PSO pumps where limited stock of the fuel was available while other companies stations including Shell, Caltex and Total were totally out of stocks.
A sales man at PSO pump said the POL supply at the Pakistan State Oil outlets was better. “We sell around 5,000 liters daily but these days our sale touch the mark of 10,000 liters due un-availability of fuel at other stations but the PSO alone cant meet city’s fuel requirements,” he added.
He hoped the problem would be resolved within two days as floodwater recedes from the Parco and only problem is some routes which are still under repair.
Meanwhile Shuja Anwar of the All Pakistan Dealers Association said that we have received the announcement of gas supply suspension withdrawal.
He said that due to high consumption which goes up by 75pc in domestic use the SNGPL decided to issue licenses to industry for 9 months from 1983 asking them to run units on diesel or furnace oil in winter. In this way they compensated the shortfall but now textile steel and industry offered bribe to govt, hence they are successful to get smooth supply even in winter, creating problems for rest of the country, he alleged.
On Monday, the SNGPL announced to suspend gas supply to all the industrial units for five days due to the annual 10-day closure of Qadirpur gas field.