ISLAMABAD: IGNITE – National Technology Fund under Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication aims to reduce Unaccounted-for-Gas (UFG) down to 10% that equals 25 billion per annum.
IT Ministry will be gaining this profit through the project ‘Energy Watch; preventing pilferage, saving cost of inclining resource of Gas’ to benefit domestic users. Project manager Dr Gul Muhammad said, main hurdle in this project was the installation of the sensors for underground networking of pipelines and provision of energy to those sensors, which now has been resolved.
He added that the through this step the cost of the project will be reduced. Dr Gul said according to the estimate Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) will recover its implementation cost for these installations around three years. “It will be profitable for SNGPL for next five to ten years’, he explained.
“Through this project, we are targeting to address each one of these irregularity, with an aim to reduce UFG down”, he said. We have developed a sensor based network for real time monitoring and data acquisition of Gas Distribution network, for possible malicious activities and theft detection.
He said, Sensors are initially tested and ready to installed in the field and experiments are undergo for underground networking of pipelines to detect the leakage and save the resource.
Through this project worth 15.4 million we are aiming to use gas pipe line for high speed communication as well, he added.
He said, According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Unaccounted-for-Gas (UFG) averages at 1-2% globally. However, in Pakistan UFG is at an alarming 13% for both SNGPL and SSGC.
Every percent of gas loss amounts to a loss of $28 Million (Rs. 2.5 billion) accumulating to an annual loss of over $334 Million to the national exchequer (Rs. 3 billion or Rs 300 crores).
Major contributing anomalies towards UFG are Leakage, Theft, Meter tampering, false billing and Illegal connections. In theft, major industries are involved specially CNG stations.
Usually main gas pipe line are underground so their detection process is really tough so through this project it could help in saving this inclining resource.
The main reason for gas shortage in winter season is the dependency on thermal generation and lack of hydro generation in the winter season.
Usually in under construction areas pipelines get damages and instead of repairing the working labors put the mud on it which causes loss of resource.
