The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources has at times come under pressure mainly due to shortage of petrol in the country. From changes in the prices to administrative failures, the inability to tackle and confront the situation created problems in the lives of the common people. Shortage of gas in winter for households is another problem affecting daily routine.

Vision 2025 has been adopted to judge the performances of the respective ministries. The green and red scores are associated with the performance of each ministry.

"We have taken some bold decisions in the petroleum and gas sectors. The LNG project is a big achievement of our ministry and we will present important projects in the future to enhance the performance of the ministry," says the Minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

Last week, in a high-level meeting, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stressed on the early completion of the ministry’s projects earmarked under the umbrella of the CPEC to timely curb the escalating energy crisis. He also ordered to increase inter-ministerial coordination for appropriate outcomes.

The receivables of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) have reached up to Rs215 billion in May this year. This was revealed in the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly. The scrutiny of audit paras of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources showed that power generation companies and the government owed billions of rupees to the PSO.

Secretary Petroleum, Arshad Mirza, says the functioning of the government would be adversely affected if PSO stopped supplying to defaulter companies. He pointed out that the dues were several years old and the finance ministry was the relevant entity which could deal with the issue.

The reported tussle among key federal ministers could worsen the situation. A well-connected government source tells TNS, "October 13 meeting with the Prime Minister was held against the backdrop of reports of Khawaja Asif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s criticism of Ahsan Iqbal."

"The alternative solution of natural gas has been found in the form of LNG, which is a good move. Through PSO and other government departments, like Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) the supply of LNG would be at stake primarily on administrative issues," says Ali Salman, Executive Director, Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (PRIME), an Islamabad-based think tank. "Technical issues like ship installments on ports should be addressed to achieve desirable targets by adopting market-driven mechanism," he adds.

PRIME, which reviewed 10 selected ministries in 2014 on the basis of their performance, and gave the ministry of petroleum and natural resources 2 out of the 10 points. Its main failure was not reforming the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) -- one of the main goals in PML-N manifesto.

The issue of distribution of gas in winter is another issue. The minister said that only 1150mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) of gas was available in the SNGPL system, of which 350mmcfd was Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s share. That would leave only 800mmcfd for Punjab, against its peak domestic demand of over 900mmcfd.

After giving KP its share, the remaining gas "would stand consumed entirely in the domestic sector," the minister says. He adds that 2.9 billion cubic feet per day was available in the system at the time of the 18th Amendment in 2010, which has come down to 2.4 bcfd because of the depletion of the existing reservoirs.