A gas sector gaslighting itself

Pakistan’s gas sector has an allocation problem, not a supply problem. The country already produces and imports enough gas to serve the existing network more intelligently. Pakistan’s energy ladder runs in cruel reverse. The poorest households, those in places where clean-fuel access remains thin and where firewood, dung, crop residue, or cylinders remain the default, pay the most for energy. Around 40 per cent of Pakistani households still use wood or sticks for cooking, while only 38pc have access to clean fuel for cooking, lighting, and heating. In Balochistan, that clean-fuel figure is only about one in four households. The household outside the pipe is the majority experience, not an exception. LPG, one rung up the income ladder, is also expensive once converted into useful heat. At official notified consumer prices, LPG is roughly Rs4,900 per metric million British thermal unit (MMBtu) on a gross energy basis. After accounting for burner losses, cylinder handling, retail margins, and delivery frictions, the useful-heat cost is closer to Rs9,000-10,000 per MMBtu and can be higher for commercial use. Purchased firewood and biomass can still be more expensive in terms of useful energy. The point is simple: the poorer and less connected the consumer, the more expensive the energy. Pakistan is effectively using a dollar-priced fuel to heat water in subsidised urban homes, while business that can pay a fair price buy cylinders, and poorer households outside the network rely on firewood Piped gas sits at the other end of the ladder. Pakistan has around 10.8 million gas connections, roughly a quarter of households. These are predominantly urban, networked, and relatively better-off households by the very fact of being connected. Yet the most protected domestic consumers are still sold gas at commodity rates as low as Rs200 per MMBtu, before fixed charges. Even after the Rs600 protected-consumer fixed charge, meter rent, and burner inefficiency are included, the all-in