The World Bank has estimated that unaccounted for gas will exceed 10% during the current fiscal year and has expressed serious concern over widespread tampering with the domestic gas meter which can be easily done, only with a screwdriver.
As part of the PKR 50 billion efficiency improvement program for Pakistan’s gas sector an aide memoir of the World Bank reported to the government that the UFG had been on the rise for over 10 years. The cost of UFG has risen even faster, whether based on cost of domestic gas production or the value of imported petroleum products that could have been saved if all the UFG was available for consumption.
World Bank said that tampering with domestic gas meters appears to be widespread and is reasonably easy to undertake, requiring only a screwdriver. It suggested improved design with the use of non removable screws for the meter and for the indexing assembly which records gas flows.
The bank said that a significant number of one type of meter used for domestic customers under measured the gas passing through. In worst cases, the meter registers none or very little of gas passing through it.
Although the results available were derived from only three per cent of the domestic meters used by the Sui Southern Gas Company the indication was that meter error could account for as much as a quarter of the total UFG of the company. By contrast in 2010 when the UFG was first discussed with the bank this was as low as negligible.
The World Bank said that if the severity of the meter problem is confirmed, SSGC may have to import residential meters in addition to fully utilizing the available capacity in its metering plant in order to roll out new meters at the necessary pace.
While working on segmentation of various household and gas network areas into about 400 segments, the bank also proposed strategies involving complete pipeline replacement or repair, complete meter replacement, calibration of a substantial portion of old meters to add to the UFG understanding and testing of new technologies for trenching, pipeline repairs, etc.
The bank appreciated that the SSGC had already established 74 segments including 53 in Karachi, eight in interior Sindh and 13 in Balochistan and had already isolated segments in which UFG was shockingly high often well over 30% allowing the company to proceed with further segmentation.
The World Bank has asked the SSGC to commit to the target of meeting international standards on gas losses which meant that the renovated segments would have less than one per cent UFG and have no need for pressure management.
The bank also proposed to start a pilot project for replacing inefficient residential consumer appliances with modern, efficient ones, or more likely a program to retrofit parts to residential stoves that would increase thermal efficiency and impact gas consumption on a larger scale and more immediately. The potential for energy saving is large, and could be of magnitude of almost 10 billion cubic feet per year for cook stoves only in SSGC’s service area.
Source - Dawn.com
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