Sharif orders two-hour cap on power blackouts as Hormuz crisis bites Pakistan’s grid

By Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered power authorities to hold electricity outages to no more than two hours in any part of the country, moving to contain public anger over blackouts that officials tied directly to the fallout from the war between the US and Iran.

Sharif issued the directive on Friday while chairing a meeting in Islamabad on the country’s electricity load-management situation, according to a statement from his office. The prime minister expressed displeasure over what it described as rising loadshedding nationwide and told officials that “no area should experience load shedding for more than two hours.”

The order lands as Pakistan’s energy planners confront one of the most disruptive supply shocks in the country’s decade of importing liquefied natural gas. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — the corridor at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG has historically moved — has been severely curtailed since the US and Israel opened an air campaign against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard responded by warning off tanker traffic, and QatarEnergy, Pakistan’s dominant long-term LNG supplier, declared force majeure on its contracted deliveries in March.

The PM’s office linked the domestic blackouts directly to that disruption. Regasified liquefied natural gas — LNG converted back into gas form after it arrives at Pakistani terminals — has become harder to secure at contracted prices, forcing state buyers into a spot market where cargoes now cost multiples of what they did before the war. The resulting decline in gas-fired generation left authorities managing load “to maintain a balance between electricity demand and supply,” the statement said, using the government’s term for scheduled outages.

The price consequences have been stark. RLNG-based electricity generation cost Rs47.4 per unit in July, according to Nepra data cited by Topline Securities, up 242% from less than Rs14 in April — the steepest increase in the fuel’s history in Pakistan. State-run Pakistan LNG Ltd., largely dormant for more than two years before the war, was reactivated to secure five emergency cargoes on the spot market for July delivery, at prices well above the roughly $13 per mmBtu Pakistan State Oil had been paying under its long-term Qatar contract. RLNG generation costs climbed again in June, to about Rs35.5 per unit, before their July surge.

Sharif directed authorities to take immediate steps to stabilize RLNG supplies, instructing them to weigh both the regional situation and Pakistan’s longer-term energy needs. He told power officials to deploy all available resources to keep outages within the two-hour ceiling nationwide.

Pakistan’s exposure to the conflict runs deeper than a single supply line. The country holds two government-to-government LNG agreements with Qatar, historically its primary supplier, and depends on both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea for oil and gas shipments — chokepoints that have each faced separate disruptions in recent months as the war has widened.

Beyond the supply-side response, Sharif ordered the country’s power distribution companies to establish Consumer Grievance Redressal Committees within a week to field public complaints tied to electricity transmission and supply. He directed that the panels include public representatives and become fully operational within seven days. Consumers can also lodge complaints through the government’s 118 electricity helpline, which issues a token number and an estimated resolution timeframe, officials told the meeting.

Separately, officials briefed the prime minister that recent monsoon rains had left power supply largely unaffected nationwide, with the exception of six consumers in Rajanpur district.

The meeting was attended by Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Economic Affairs Minister Ahad Khan Cheema, Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik, Power Division Minister Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, prime ministerial adviser Rana Sanaullah, Minister of State for Finance and Railways Bilal Azhar Kiyani, and other senior government officials.