Gas supplies restored following possible sabotage

Up to 80 percent of gas supplies had been restored to the Punjab and North West Frontier provinces of Pakistan on Thursday, following explosions on gas pipelines in central Pakistan. "The pipes have been fixed and it is all under control and the rest of the supply will restored by the end of today," the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited [SNGPL] chief public relations officer, Naeem Khan, told IRIN from the eastern Punjabi city of Lahore on Thursday. "We don't know who is responsible, but we fear this could be sabotage, and our investigation teams are looking into it," he added. The gas supply to the provinces was interrupted after two out of the three pipelines were blown up on Tuesday at Ahmadpur Lamsa, some 15 km from the district of Rahimyar Khan in the Punjab province, some 500 km from the capital, Islamabad. "Supplies have been partially affected and some of the major industrial units have had their supplies discontinued," Khan said, adding that a public announcement would be made when the pipes had been fixed. In order to meet the demand of domestic and commercial premises in both provinces, SNGPL has terminated supplies to fertiliser and power companies. Local media reported that almost 70 percent of supplies to the two provinces had been affected. The first pipeline, 30 inches in diameter, was ruptured at about 05:00, while the other, 24 inches in diameter, was at 08:00 (local times). "Our emergency teams from Sukkar [in the southern Sindh Province] and Multan [in Punjab Province] are already on the site and are working day and night to restore the supply," Khan said. This incident follows a similar one in January, when some 70 metres of the gas pipeline in Sui, in the southwestern Balochistan Province was blown up in an apparent act of sabotage, following a tribal dispute in the area.