Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited has kept its SNGPL new gas connection ban in force with no end date set. The company, which pipes natural gas across much of northern Pakistan, is not issuing fresh domestic links for now. SNGPL sources said the Ministry of Petroleum ordered the freeze and that connections are unlikely to reopen until tensions in the US-Iran conflict ease.
Why the freeze was kept in place
According to sources familiar with the utility’s position, supply of re-gasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG)—imported gas turned back into pipeline gas—has been disrupted amid the ongoing US-Iran conflict. That disruption has widened the shortfall on the existing network. Winter has also lifted household demand, so keeping even regular domestic customers supplied is already difficult.
Officials and sources expect the squeeze to worsen in the days ahead. The same RLNG gap, they say, has tightened the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market as well, leaving another common cooking fuel under pressure. Against that backdrop, the SNGPL new gas connection ban is framed as a way to stop adding new load while the system is already short.
Hotels, tandoors and households
Sources said SNGPL has also stopped commercial gas to commercial tandoors and hotels. For those businesses, that means cooking and baking that once ran on piped gas must shift to other fuels where they can find them. Households already on the network are not being promised round-the-clock supply: gas is being issued only on a designated schedule.
Thousands of applicants remain without a meter even though they paid urgent processing fees, sources added. Those payments do not currently unlock a connection while the ban holds. Anyone waiting for a first-time domestic link on the SNGPL network therefore faces an open-ended delay rather than a published restart date.
When supply could ease
SNGPL sources tied any restoration of new connections to a cooling of US-Iran tensions that have, in their account, unsettled RLNG flows. Until then, the company is rationing what gas it has through the timetable already in use. Domestic users should plan around scheduled hours; commercial kitchens cut off from piped gas will need alternate arrangements for as long as the halt lasts.
The picture is still developing with winter demand high and imported RLNG under strain. For now, the practical message from the utility’s side is clear: no new domestic hooks, no commercial gas for hotels and tandoors, and scheduled supply for existing homes.
Aasan alfaaz mein
SNGPL ne naye gas connection abhi ke liye band rakhe hain, aur khulne ki koi fixed date nahi batai gai. Hotels aur commercial tandoors ko bhi pipeline gas nahi mil rahi. Jo log urgent fee de chuke hain, unhein abhi connection nahi mil raha. Gharoon ko gas schedule ke mutabiq mil rahi hai, is liye sardi mein pehle se planning kar lein.
