Petroleum minister for mixed pricing to avoid isolated bankruptcies

Petroleum Minister Dr Musadik Malik on Thursday warned of ‘isolated bankruptcy’ in the petroleum sector unless a weighted average price of imported, piped and wellhead gas was introduced along with rationalised electricity rates to incentivise transition for transport, cooking and heating purposes. Testifying before the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Petroleum, Mr Malik also blamed the PTI government for two critical decisions causing economic hamstring — contracting additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes while demand was slowing and committing to shifting all industrial captive power plants (CPPs) from gas supply to national power grid that the government could not renege due to IMF.