Pakistan’s Petroleum Division has begun work to scrap the 12-slab domestic gas tariff and replace it with a single uniform rate of Rs1,708 per MMBtu — the system-wide average today — applied to households, CNG stations, cement plants, commercial users and industry alike (Geo News).
The direction was confirmed publicly a day earlier. Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik told the Sui Southern Gas Company board in Karachi on Thursday that “the existing system of gas subsidies via pricing slabs needs to be revisited,” and called for a transition to “a single fair gas price for all consumers,” with vulnerable households protected through targeted social protection instead (Dawn, The Express Tribune).
Nothing has been notified. The Rs1,708 uniform-rate proposal rests on Geo News and The News — one newsroom, citing unnamed official sources. No OGRA determination or government notification has been issued for it.
The 12 slabs
The slabs it would replace are not in dispute: they are the notified tariff in force since 1 July 2025, under OGRA’s notification of 29 June 2025 (SSGC). There are two domestic categories — four protected bands and eight non-protected — priced per MMBtu against monthly consumption in hm³:
– Protected (winter average at or below 0.9 hm³): Rs200 (up to 0.25), Rs250 (0.5), Rs300 (0.6), Rs350 (0.9) – Non-protected: Rs500 (0.25), Rs850 (0.6), Rs1,250 (1), Rs1,450 (1.5), Rs1,900 (2), Rs3,300 (3), Rs3,800 (4), Rs4,200 (above 4)
Four plus eight is the 12; Geo describes the top four non-protected bands as “higher-end” consumers already paying above the average, but the notified schedule does not treat them as a separate category. The spread runs from Rs200 to Rs4,200 — a 21-fold gap between the cheapest and dearest household rate.
Who loses
Rs1,708 sits above eight of those twelve bands. The poorest protected slab would go from Rs200 to Rs1,708 — 8.5 times higher, a jump of Rs1,508 per MMBtu. The top protected band rises from Rs350 to Rs1,708, nearly fivefold. The cheapest non-protected rate roughly triples from Rs500; the Rs850 band about doubles. Only the top four non-protected slabs, all already above the average, would pay less.
Geo reports the transition is meant to be cushioned by income-tested cash support through BISP rather than cheap gas, with the Petroleum Division seeking Rs162 billion for targeted subsidy — in substance the same money as the roughly Rs160 billion cross-subsidy the reform would abolish, not a further ask on top of it. The Express Tribune reported on 23 August that the division had already taken a projected FY2026-27 cross-subsidy for protected consumers to the Cabinet Committee on Energy, itemised as a Rs161.9 billion deficit — Rs81.2 billion at SNGPL and Rs80.7 billion at SSGC (The Express Tribune).
Who gains
Cement manufacturers, at Rs4,400, would see costs fall about 61%. CNG stations (Rs3,750) drop 54%, commercial users (Rs3,900) 56%, captive power plants (Rs3,500) 51% and general industry (Rs2,300) 26%. Geo and The Express Tribune give identical current rates for all five categories (The Express Tribune).
Who decides
Not the Petroleum Division alone. OGRA determines prescribed prices biannually and refers them to the federal government, which holds exclusive jurisdiction over consumer tariffs under the OGRA Ordinance (The Express Tribune). Geo says a summary has gone to the CCoE — the Cabinet Committee on Energy, chaired by the prime minister (The Express Tribune) — and that the matter is likely to surface at the IMF’s fourth review in September–October 2026. Tribune separately reports the IMF is pushing to curtail the government’s power to cut gas prices at all, with gas-sector circular debt at Rs3,288 billion as of June 2025.
Timing is unsettled even in the government’s own telling: Geo says completion was previously scheduled for January 2027, while it quotes an official source hoping the single tariff will be enforced “in the next financial year.”
Dawn’s figures look like a conflict but are not one, once the categories are named. Its Rs500–Rs4,300 range is the non-protected band — the same set Tribune gives as Rs500–Rs4,200 — so it excludes protected households altogether, which is where the Rs200 floor sits; and the notified top slab is Rs4,200, not Rs4,300. Dawn’s “around Rs1,700” is the OGRA-determined average prescribed price, the per-unit value of the gas companies’ revenue requirements. That sits at the same level as Rs1,708 but is not itself a consumer tariff: only Geo reports Rs1,708 as the rate households would actually be charged.
What no source addresses is the fixed monthly charges — Rs600 for protected households, Rs1,500 or Rs3,000 for non-protected, plus Rs40 meter rent. Whether they survive a switch to a single rate, or go with the slabs, no one has said.
