KARACHI: The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) signed a memorandum of understanding for jointly exploring opportunities for improving business sustainability, efficiency and productivity of the meter manufacturing plant located in SSGC, Karachi, a statement said.
Ali J Hamdani, managing director of SNGPL and Imran Maniar, managing director of SSGC signed the MoU at a simple ceremony held at the latter’s head office.

The MoU pledges to initiate a detailed technical, financial, commercial, legal and regulatory due-diligence of the meter manufacturing plant owned by SSGC through the services of a transaction advisory firm with the objective to decide on a prospective joint venture arrangement with SSGC regarding the plant.

Both officials stressed upon working in unison to improve the plant’s manufacturing capacity, add new product lines and introduce new assembly lines to maximise product localisation and; thus, develop employment opportunities in the country and in addition, save valuable foreign exchange through localisation. Senior officials from both companies were present in the meeting.

Over nine million households in Pakistan benefit from the grid-supplied natural gas as a fuel for catering to the domestic requirements. The gas meters are vital devices, enabling accurate sales gas registration and billing.

Now, SSGC’s meter plant is a state-of-the-art, vertically integrated, full-scale manufacturing facility with in-house capabilities such as machining, plastic moulding, assembling, robot-assisted painting, testing and calibration, while acting as a source of income for around 10,000 Pakistani citizens.

The meter manufacturing plant produces two models of gas meters for residential installations with an extendable existing cumulative production capacity of over one million (based on single shift) units/annum.