The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has raised the price of imported gas by up to 15.3 percent for October 2026. The notification was issued on Friday, October 30, and applies from October 1 — so the month was almost over before the rate for it was set.
The increase follows a 20 percent cut in September and is mainly down to higher crude oil prices, which LNG contracts are linked to.
| Rate per mmBtu | September | October |
|---|---|---|
| SNGPL transmission | $13.99 | $15.94 |
| SNGPL distribution | $15.196 | $17.33 |
| SSGCL transmission | $12.611 | $14.53 |
| SSGCL distribution | $14.22 | $16.396 |
Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) supplies Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) supplies Sindh and Balochistan.
Where the extra $6.58 goes
The more revealing number is not the increase. It is the gap between what the gas costs on arrival and what it costs at the end of the pipe.
The average delivered ex-ship price of LNG in October was $10.75 per mmBtu. That is the landed cost of the two cargoes, before anything happens to them. By the distribution stage, SSGCL’s rate is $16.396 and SNGPL’s is $17.33 — $5.65 and $6.58 higher. For SNGPL that is roughly 61 percent added on top of the import price.
Two things fill that gap.
The first is margins and charges taken by the state-owned bodies that import and move the gas — Pakistan State Oil, Pakistan LNG Limited and the port authorities, covering retainage and handling. These come to 3.77 percent of the delivered price.
The second is bigger: gas that never reaches a paying customer. SNGPL’s distribution losses are running at just under 9 percent and SSGCL’s at 12.55 percent. These are leaks, measurement errors and theft, and they are paid for by the people whose gas does arrive.
Both figures have worsened over a year. SSGCL’s losses were around 10.6 percent at this time last year, and SNGPL’s were 7.47 percent. So the system is losing more gas than it did, while the gas itself costs more.
This is not your kitchen stove
One clarification worth making, because the headline figure gets read the wrong way.
RLNG is imported gas. It mainly goes to industry, captive power plants, CNG stations and electricity generation. It is not the tariff a household pays for a domestic connection — those rates are set separately in OGRA’s annual determination and the government’s category-wise tariff notification, and they have not changed because of this.
So nobody’s gas bill goes up this week on account of this notification. The effect reaches households by other routes.
December bills carry it
The clearest route is electricity.
Power produced from RLNG cost about Rs. 40 per unit in September, when the import price was $10.06 per mmBtu. October’s import price is $10.75. Fuel costs feed into bills through the monthly fuel charges adjustment with a lag, so this increase is expected to show in December’s electricity billing.
The second route is slower and harder to see. Factories running on RLNG pay more to make things, and that cost works into the price of what they sell. Textiles, ceramics, glass, steel and food processing all use gas directly.
For some context on the swings: the delivered LNG price was $18.96 per mmBtu in July, $12.12 in August, $10.06 in September and $10.75 in October. The import cost is well below its summer peak. What has not fallen is the share added after the gas lands.
