Seventeen foreign and domestic companies have shown an interest in supplying Pakistan with 500 million cubic feet per day (cfd) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for up to 10 years, a spokesman for the government's gas company said on Monday.
A critical partner for the United States, Pakistan desperately needs energy to feed its stumbling power sector which suffers from hours of outages every day, seriously impacting the economy and stoking political unrest. In a bid to bridge the widening power shortfall, the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), a government subsidiary, in May solicited expressions of interest (EoI) from companies for the supply of 500 mcfd of LNG.
SSGC spokesman Zuhair Siddiqui said the response to the government's call had been "encouraging", with 17 companies showing interest in the project. "We are satisfied as we got EoI from very renowned companies like Shell, 4Gas Asia and Vitol," he said. He said the evaluation of the EoI and short listing of companies would take at least a couple of months.
"We need to see that those companies coming in are financially sound to have this contract as whoever gets it, it has to meet the minimum financial and other requirements," he said. Siddiqui did not give details about the government's requirements. He said the government's aim is to have the gas in the first and second quarter of next year. The quantity could be increased to 2 billion cubic feet per day.
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