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The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) managing director on Thursday said the company was launching a “massive crackdown” against gas theft in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, stressing there will be “zero tolerance” for any pilferage.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore, SNGPL Managing Director Amir Tufail said the operation would cover the company’s entire service area in Punjab and KP, adding 361 employees involved in the crime had been punished by various disciplinary actions, including termination from service, demotion, and stoppage of salary or increments.
On the law and order concerns in the oil and gas producing blocks of Karak and adjoining areas, he said the company had managed to reduce gas losses by 66 percent with the help of law enforcers and the federal government. He claimed operations over the past three years had helped recover Rs. 2.4 billion in more than 325,000 cases related to gas pilferage. In this regard, he said, field teams had gotten 803 cases lodged with several police stations in both provinces.
Tufail said SNGPL had also surpassed the government’s goals for reducing unaccounted/line losses, noting the target for 2019-2022 had been set at 18 billion cubic feet (BCF) while the company had achieved reductions of 23BCF. This, he claimed, had saved the country around Rs. 12.5 billion. Additionally, he said, the company was monitoring suspicious industrial connections to detect tampering. “The company has also rectified leakages on the 87,000km-long network during the last three years,” he added.
According to local media, within hours of the news conference, SNGPL registered cases of gas theft against over 30 people in the federal capital.