Winter gas plan may limit domestic supply to eight hours a day

Domestic consumers may face gas loadshedding this winter because demand exceeds supply, with a proposed schedule limiting gas supply to just eight hours in each 24-hour period.

According to sources cited in the reporting, the Ministry of Petroleum has completed its work on winter gas supply and will soon present the matter to the prime minister. No official announcement has yet been made on final approval or implementation of the proposed schedule.

That distinction is important. What is reported is a proposal, not a decision. Households should not treat the eight-hour schedule as confirmed until the government announces it. But the proposal itself, coming from the ministry responsible for gas supply, is a clear signal of how tight winter supply is expected to be.

What the proposed schedule would mean

Under the proposed schedule, domestic consumers would receive gas during breakfast, afternoon and dinner times, while supply would be affected during the remaining hours. In practice, that means gas for cooking at mealtimes, but long gaps in between.

For households that rely on gas for cooking, heating water and warming rooms, those gaps would change daily routines. Meals would need to be cooked within the supply windows. Water heating would need to be planned around them. In colder areas, where gas heaters run through the night, the absence of supply for 16 hours would be felt most sharply.

The reporting does not give exact timings for the three supply windows. Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Sui Southern Gas Company would issue separate schedules for their respective regions if the proposal is approved. That means households in the north and south could face different timings, and should look to their own distributor for details rather than assuming a single national timetable.

How tight is supply now

The figures cited in the reporting give a sense of the current position. Sui Northern is currently supplying 487 million cubic feet of gas daily to domestic consumers, while Sui Southern is supplying 286 million cubic feet daily to domestic consumers.

Winter demand rises sharply as households use more gas for heating and cooking. Supply, by contrast, does not rise in the same way. Domestic gas production has been under pressure, and imported gas is expensive. The gap between winter demand and available supply is what produces loadshedding, and the proposed eight-hour schedule is one way of managing that gap.

The alternative, cutting supply without a published schedule, would be worse for households. A known timetable, even a restrictive one, allows families to plan. That is presumably why the proposal is built around mealtimes rather than an arbitrary pattern of cuts.

LPG prices add to the worry

Alongside fears of limited gas supply in winter, the rise in LPG prices could also become a matter of concern for consumers, the reporting notes. LPG is the usual fallback for households without piped gas, and for piped-gas households when supply is cut.

If both piped gas hours and LPG prices move against consumers at the same time, the cost of cooking and heating rises on two fronts. That combination is what makes winter gas news a household budget story, not only an energy policy story.

Our recent coverage of LPG prices in Lahore has already shown how sensitive consumers are to changes in cooking fuel costs. A winter in which piped gas is limited and LPG is dearer would hit lower-income households hardest, since they have the least room to absorb higher fuel bills or to switch to electric alternatives.

What to watch for next

The next step is the presentation to the prime minister. That meeting was the subject of a separate report earlier in the day, which said the prime minister would review the country’s gas situation today. The proposal described here appears to be the ministry’s prepared position for that review.

Three things will show whether the proposal becomes policy. First, whether the prime minister approves it, with or without changes. Second, whether Sui Northern and Sui Southern publish detailed regional schedules. Third, whether any relief or alternative supply is announced alongside the cuts, such as protected supply for hospitals or other essential users.

How many hours of gas would households get under the proposal?

Has the government approved the schedule?

Who would issue the detailed schedules?

• ProPakistani, “16-Hour Gas Loadshedding Reportedly Expected in Winter” (28 October 2026): https://propakistani.pk/2026/10/28/16-hour-gas-loadshedding-reportedly-expected-in-winter/