Government promises winter gas for three daily meals, even if it must buy the most expensive LNG, as LPG shortage bites
Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik told a Tuesday press conference in Islamabad that the government would do its utmost to keep piped domestic gas flowing at breakfast, lunch and dinner through the peak winter months, after the closure of Iranian border crossings disrupted LPG supplies and pushed open-market cylinder prices to twice the official rate.
The federal government has promised households that it will keep domestic gas flowing through the coming winter, even if that means buying fuel at the highest available price, as a shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) leaves many families paying far more than the official rate for a cylinder.
Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik gave the assurance at a press conference in Islamabad on Tuesday, 3 November, framing it as a direct response to public hardship. He said the government understood the distress people were already facing, and knew that demand would climb further when winter reaches its peak in December and January.
His central pledge concerned the piped network. Malik said the government would make its utmost efforts to ensure that domestic consumers receive piped gas at the timings of the three daily meals. That promise matters because, in many Pakistani homes, cooking depends on those windows: if gas pressure falls or supply is suspended at mealtimes, families cannot cook, whatever the official schedule says.
To keep that promise, he went further than a general assurance. Even if the most expensive fuel has to be purchased for the piped network, the government will bring it in and try to meet demand through liquefied natural gas (LNG), he said. In other words, cost would not be the reason for a shortfall at the stove, at least according to the minister’s Tuesday statement.
The immediate trigger for the statement is the disruption to LPG. Supplies have been hit by the closure of Iranian border crossings, and the effect has been felt quickly in the open market, where cylinders are being sold at twice the official rate. Reports of the press conference put the price being charged by some sellers at Rs700 to Rs800 per kilogramme, after supply, in the minister’s phrase, dried up on the country’s western border.
That matters most for households that are not connected to the piped network, and for uses that piped gas cannot cover. Malik acknowledged that LPG would still be needed by consumers without pipeline connections and for other purposes, so a promise about piped gas alone does not solve the cylinder problem. The distinction is important: the two fuels serve overlapping but different groups, and a shortage in one cannot simply be answered by an assurance about the other.
The minister also accused some sellers of exploiting the shortage. With supply constrained, he said, certain people were taking advantage of families who had little choice but to buy. That complaint echoes a wider pattern in energy shortages, where official prices and street prices diverge sharply and households with the least bargaining power pay the most.
Tuesday’s remarks did not come out of nowhere. The petroleum ministry has been working on winter supply since September, according to earlier statements, and on Monday Malik had already said that gas arrangements for November’s three daily cooking times were in place, while decisions for December and January were still being finalised. Tuesday’s press conference sharpened that into a firmer commitment for the peak months, backed by the LNG pledge.
The statement also sits alongside a busy week of energy announcements. The government has just cut petrol by Rs3.40 and diesel by Rs7.76 a litre from 3 November, arranged a temporary Rs15-a-litre petrol relief through local refineries, and is in final-stage talks with Jamaat-e-Islami over the petroleum levy and a relief package. On fuel prices more broadly, Malik on Tuesday recalled the latest reduction, noted that the international market had closed lower, and hinted that even better news could follow — a remark that will be watched closely at the next price revision.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a meeting on the energy question on Tuesday, according to Malik, and is personally leading work on what the minister described as rebuilding the entire energy security architecture from scratch. That language suggests the government sees the current disruption not as a one-off shortage but as a reason to rethink how supply is secured, stored and priced.
What households will actually experience in December and January remains the test. A press-conference pledge is not a delivery, and the coming weeks will show whether piped pressure holds at mealtimes, whether LPG reaches the market at something close to the official rate, and whether the promised LNG purchases arrive in time. For now, the government’s message is clear: it intends to buy its way through the peak, however expensive that proves to be, rather than let homes go without gas at the hours they need it most.
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