Former federal Minister for Petroleum, Dr. Asim Hussain, has claimed that he is 80% sure that Pakistan will run out of natural gas by 2023.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader stated that in 2012 he had predicted a gas shortage in the following 10 years if the plan to combat the unnecessary use of gas resources isn’t executed.
He further added that considering everything that has happened so far, he is 80% sure that Pakistan won’t have natural gas next year.
According to Dr. Asim Hussain, PM Shehbaz Sharif announced that the total electricity cost is nearly $27 billion per year.
In light of this, he inquired as to how the federal government intends to pay for it, noting that around 4 billion cubic feet (BCF) of natural gas were present when he left the government. However, it is currently only 2.5 BCF, if it falls by another billion, the remaining reserves will be insufficient, he warned.
Furthermore, the former Minister expressed concern that previous governments did little to address this issue, and he does not expect anything to be done in the future either.
Also, he asserted that if the aforementioned cost climbs from $27 billion to $32-37 billion, the country will face a major financial catastrophe.
Citizens are already experiencing signs of an impending gas crisis in the form of severe gas load-shedding across the country. The federal government must come up with a framework to resolve this problem as soon as possible.
