Engro blames slow pace for not accomplishing dry-docking on time

ISLAMABAD: Although the government has held Engro responsible for the current gas crisis in the country, its president Ghias Khan argued that if the work had been done at an accelerated pace, terminal dry-docking could have accomplished during the Eid holidays.

He said they had written several letters to Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), as they possessed 70 such letters written to them.

While talking to Geo News programme anchor Shahzeb Khanzada Thursday, he said they had informed the SSGC in October 2019 that the dry-docking would be done in March 2020. It would have become part of the annual plan. Then March 2020 came and the COVID-19 broke out.

He said they continuously communicated to the SSGC that the dry-docking could not be accomplished because no vaccine had come in the market to control virus spread at that time.

The class society again communicated that dry-docking could not be done and it might be done in April next year and they communicated them to undertake an inspection in April 2021.

Then they inspected it in March when the dockyard had started opening up, as vaccines had arrived in the world.

He said that they informed the SSGC on March 30 that the dockyard would be done till June 30. The government also blamed NAB for not utilising access capacity of the LNG terminal. He said that they had brought bigger 780mmcfd of FSRU instead of 680mmcfd FSRU because they wanted to bring big ship into Pakistan in order to cater to requirements of coming winter season. There is no other solution as the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum were all on the same page.