Pakistan Ends Month-Long Loadshedding After LNG Arrival

ISLAMABAD: Power Minister Awais Leghari on Friday announced that Pakistan’s month-long spell of loadshedding had come to an end after a liquefied natural gas shipment reached the country, offering immediate relief to households and businesses facing repeated power cuts during rising temperatures.

The minister said in a televised message that recent outages were caused mainly by a shortage of gas supplies linked to regional disruption from the US-Iran conflict. He rejected the impression that the cuts reflected a breakdown of the power system or poor administrative handling, insisting that fuel availability had become the central challenge.

According to Leghari, consumers faced power cuts of up to five hours on April 13 and 14, while the duration rose to around seven hours on April 15 and 16. The government later brought outages down sharply, with most areas seeing the schedule reduced to about two to two and a half hours until the latest LNG arrival improved supply conditions.

The minister said the government avoided heavy reliance on diesel and furnace oil because doing so would have raised electricity costs for consumers. He noted that hydropower generation had increased significantly during the crisis, while furnace oil was used only selectively to stabilise supply without adding a larger burden to power tariffs.

Officials had earlier explained that Pakistan’s LNG-linked electricity generation was affected after imported cargoes stopped arriving at the beginning of April. Qatar’s state-run energy firm had declared force majeure, creating a serious supply gap for gas-based power plants during peak demand hours and forcing authorities to manage electricity distribution more tightly.

The latest LNG cargo is part of emergency procurement arranged to soften the pressure on the national grid. Pakistan LNG Limited had secured bids in late April for cargoes priced between about $17.997 and $18.88 per million British thermal units, with deliveries expected between late April and early May.

The power crisis came at a sensitive time for Pakistan, where electricity shortages quickly affect factories, markets, students, hospitals and domestic consumers. Even limited loadshedding can disrupt small businesses, raise production costs and create public anger, especially when summer heat begins to intensify across major cities and rural districts.

Leghari said the government expected no further loadshedding after the arrival of the LNG shipment and expressed confidence that the transmission system would withstand peak summer pressure. The assurance will now be tested as electricity demand rises and as the government works to secure uninterrupted fuel supplies for the coming weeks.

The next challenge for Islamabad will be to keep imported fuel moving despite regional uncertainty and elevated global energy prices. If additional LNG cargoes arrive on schedule, the power sector may remain stable, but any fresh disruption in supply routes could quickly revive pressure on the grid and renew fears of scheduled power cuts.