Construction on North-South gas pipeline likely in July

ISLAMABAD,: The much-awaited construction work on 1,100-kilometer gas pipeline is likely to start in July next year aimed at transporting the commodity from Karachi to Lahore and meeting the country’s ever-growing energy needs.

The North-South Gas Pipeline Project (NSGPP) will be executed in collaboration with Russia, under which Pakistan would have a majority share of 51-74 percent, a senior official privy to petroleum sector developments told APP.

He said Pakistan’s two state-companies, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Sui Southern Gas Company, had started acquiring land for the pipeline, which would be constructed with a leading role of a Russian consortium.

Last month, the two countries held a detailed meeting here and finalized the broad contours and parameters to lay the high pressure gas transmission pipeline to meet the growing demand of the domestic and industrial consumers by transporting the imported LNG.

The modalities were finalized during the two-day meeting of Russia-Pakistan Technical Committee.

Currently, as many as two Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals, having capacity to re-gasify 12-1300 Million Cubic Feet per Day (MMCFD) gas, were operating in Karachi.

In a major development, a multinational company is going to start construction on the first merchant LNG terminal in the country by the end of next month after the government opened up the energy sector under its ease-of-doing-business strategy.

Whereas, the official said another company had planned to start physical work on a terminal in the second half of the next year.

After setting up the terminals, he said, the companies would import and sell the commodity on their own without any involvement of the government except regulation matters.

The country’s existing natural gas reservoirs are depleting fast at a rate of 9.5 percent annually, and LNG is the only available instant remedy to bridge the increased gap between demand and supply of the country. Currently, the country’s indigenous gas production is around 3.7 Billion Cubic Feet per day against the demand of 6 BCFD.