ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) will grant about 600 new provisional licences for construction of CNG stations and 200 marketing licences for commercial operations in the next year.
By the end of current financial year, the total number of operational CNG stations is expected to reach almost 1,200, said an annual report released by the Authority here.
According to details, the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector has shown tremendous growth in the past four years, resulting in addition of 595 operative CNG stations, thus bringing cumulative investment of more than Rs32 billion.
As of June 30, 2006, 965 CNG stations were operating in the country while about 600 were at various stages of completion, which will further bring an investment of Rs7.5 billion.
During the last financial year, the Authority issued 2,165 licences for construction of CNG stations while 254 stations were completed and granted marketing licences after receiving satisfactory inspection report from the third party inspectors, which is currently Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP).
The grant of 2,165 licences for construction of CNG stations means a further investment of about Rs27 billion in the pipeline during the next two years.
According to the report, Pakistan has taken a lead role in developing the CNG infrastructure due to investor friendly policy and regulatory framework and at present stands third in the international ranking after Argentina and Brazil in terms of vehicle conversion of CNG.
As of June 30, 2006 about one million CNG vehicles were operating in the country. In the financial year 2004-05, the total number of CNG stations was 709, which increased to 965 in 2005-06 thus showing growth rate of 36 percent and similarly CNG vehicles swelled to 1,000,000 with growth rate of 25 percent in the same period.
It said, the consumption of CNG as an alternate fuel in automotive sector is expected to grow during present financial year as it has been shown in terms of increased number of CNG converted vehicles and CNG stations for the last many years.
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