ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ended planned power outages after receiving liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies, Energy Minister Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said in a televised statement on Friday, following recent supply disruptions driven by fuel shortages.
The announcement comes after the country faced intermittent power cuts in mid-April, with authorities previously attributing the disruptions to LNG supply constraints amid the war in Iran.
Pakistan has been balancing limited gas availability with hydropower generation and costly fuel-based electricity to avoid prolonged outages.
“Yesterday, we received LNG, and as soon as the gas arrived, load management of electricity has now ended,” Leghari said.
He said Pakistan had been forced to carry out up to five hours of “load-shedding,” a term used locally for planned power outages to manage electricity demand, on Apr. 13 and 14, before gradually reducing the duration of outages in the following days.
“From Apr. 19 to Apr. 29, load-shedding was limited to two to two-and-a-half hours,” he said.
“Load-shedding was not due to any negligence on our part or because the system was non-functional or lacked generation capacity,” he continued.
Instead, he added, gas shortages had constrained electricity production, forcing authorities to make difficult trade-offs.
“If we had generated electricity using diesel or furnace oil to eliminate load-shedding entirely, it would have been very expensive,” he said, pointing out that higher costs would have placed an additional burden on consumers.
The minister said hydropower output had risen significantly in recent days, helping stabilize supply.
“Hydropower generation has now reached 6,000 megawatts, whereas earlier it used to be around 1,000 megawatts,” he said.
He also dismissed claims that Pakistan had surplus generation capacity of 46,000 megawatts.
“This impression is completely wrong,” he added. “Electricity generation is not 46,000 megawatts but around 32,000 megawatts.”
Leghari said the government had taken timely measures to prevent further outages and expressed hope that load-shedding would not return.
“As it did not happen before, we hope it will not happen again,” he said.
He added that authorities would continue efforts to shield consumers from high electricity costs while maintaining supply stability.
