IN most middle-income countries, particularly across the Global South, it’s rare for households to receive piped natural gas directly into their homes. Pakistan is one of the few exceptions. In cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, gas flows directly into people’s kitchens, a convenience many developed countries still don’t offer. We’ve taken it for granted.

But step outside these urban centres, and the story is different. Rural areas continue to rely on LPG cylinders or even firewood to cook meals. And unlike piped gas, there’s no real national infrastructure for LPG. Distribution is patchy, pricing is unstable, and most of it runs through private dealers. We focused too much on expanding the pipeline grid and never developed this system.

Yet now, despite all this infrastructure, there’s a question a lot of people in urban Pakistan keep asking: why does the gas disappear every night at 9 pm?

Every winter, and now increasingly throughout the year, people are told that Pakistan is running out of gas. That we’ve depleted our local reserves. That there just isn’t enough to go around. For the longest time, this explanation was followed by calls for more LNG imports. It made sense: if domestic supply couldn’t meet demand, import the difference. The long-term LNG contract with Qatar was sold to the public as a success story. It guaranteed a steady supply. In theory, that should have solved the problem. But the shortages and the nightly cut-offs have only persisted.

The gas cuts at 9 pm are a policy failure.

In fact, Pakistan now finds itself in a situation that’s quite unusual: we have a surplus of gas, and yet people are still being told to light candles at dinner and prep their food early. Why?

The answer lies in a mix of government mismanagement, rigid international contracts, and external conditionalities. Under pressure from the IMF, Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee approved a 10 per cent increase in natural gas prices for industrial users and power plants but kept household tariffs unchanged.

For years, these industries had relied on cheap gas to run their captive power plants (privately operated electricity systems) to ensure uninterrupted supply for their operations. The state made this possible by subsidising the gas they used even while households were being told to ration. But the IMF called for a change. So, the government complied: subsidies were slashed, and industrial gas suddenly became expensive. Naturally, many industries responded by transitioning to alternatives such as solar, or back to the grid.

And that’s where the surplus comes in. Once industry stepped back, gas demand fell. We now have more gas in the system than we know what to do with. But instead of diverting that gas to homes, it just sits there. It’s forced into the system under take-or-pay LNG contracts, which require Pakistan to pay for imported gas whether we use it or not. Since it’s already paid for, the system prioritises this expensive gas and squeezes out the cheaper, locally produced supply. Local producers are asked to curtail production or shut it down.

This is especially affecting SNGPL in the north, where the system is overloaded — not from demand, but from expensive imported gas households can’t afford. Affordable local gas is sidelined to make space for costly LNG. Yet homes still go without gas after 9 pm.

To make matters worse, the LNG contracts don’t include a resale clause. If we don’t need the gas, we can’t sell it elsewhere. That kind of flexibility wasn’t built in. It’s the kind of foresight we nev-er seem to plan for — a recurring flaw in our policy--making.

And there’s an--other layer to the problem, UFG — unaccounted-for gas. That’s the official term for gas that is supplied into the system but can’t be traced to any paying customer. In reality, a lot of this gas is lost to theft. So, the more gas the government supplies, the more loss it has to absorb. If recovery isn’t guaranteed, the logic becomes: supply less, lose less. And the less gas you supply, the less subsidy you have to pay. Behind the scenes, it becomes a balancing act between preventing financial loss and delivering what citizens actually need.

So here we are. With a surplus of gas, but not enough policy clarity to put it where it’s needed. With a massive pipeline network, but no plan for equitable or rational distribution. With contracts that are rigid, and priorities that are political.

The gas cuts at 9 pm aren’t just a technical issue. They’re a policy failure. They represent a system that’s failing to adapt to changing energy realities and one that continues to ignore the actual needs of the people it’s supposed to serve.

The writer is a lawyer working in the energy sector, with a focus on regulatory frameworks in Pakistan’s gas and infrastructure landscape.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2025