Islamabad: Telecom operators in Pakistan warned to shut down their mobile and internet services on Thursday due to increased power outages. “Telecom operators in Pakistan have warned about shutting down mobile and internet services due to long hours of power outages nationwide, as the interruption is causing issues and hinderance in their operations,” informed National Information Technology Board on Twitter. Later last night, it also tweeted about the City App being down for an hour.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had also warned on Monday that the country might face increased load shedding in July, as reported by Geo News. He said that Pakistan could not get the required Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) supply. However, the coalition government was trying to make the deal possible.
Pakistan’s monthly fuel oil imports are set to hit a four-year high in June, as the country struggles to buy LNG for power generation amid a heatwave that is driving the demand as shown by Refinitiv data, reported Geo News.
Pakistan is facing an escalation of its power crisis after it failed to agree on a deal for natural gas supply for July. Tenders for next month were scrapped due to high price, and low participation as the nation is already taking action to tackle widespread blackouts.
Pakistan’s government is attempting to boost energy conservation, has cut working hours for public servants and ordered shopping malls to factories to shut early in various cities, including Karachi.
Pakistan already has two long-term supply deals with Qatar — the first signed in 2016 for five cargoes a month, and the second in 2021, under which Pakistan currently gets three monthly shipments but the nation is currently under a massive grip of widespread power outages.
It is because the procurement of the chilled fuel remains unreliable and expensive. Pakistan is also highly reliant on LNG for electricity generation.
Pakistani Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik, who was in Doha early this week for talks with Qatari Minister of State for Energy Affairs and Qatar Energy chief executive Saad al-Kaabi, had confirmed talks but said the government was exploring different “innovative” pricing and supply strategies in broad-based talks.
Pakistan Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said the government was also speaking to Qatar about a new five or 10-year LNG supply deal for three monthly cargoes, as well as an additional cargo under an existing deal.
The fast depletion of the foreign exchange reserves was the result of Pakistan’s inflation of twin deficits, and a lack of foreign currency inflows. Inflation in Pakistan entered the double-digit mark in July, the biggest surge in nearly six years.
(With inputs from ANI)
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