'Ring-fencing' of imported LNG: Islamabad building Rs 60 billion Karachi-Sawan pipeline

The federal government has finalised a Rs 60 billion "mega project" to build a 350-kilometer long pipeline for the supply of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in Sindh province. This LNG pipeline comes in addition to the 1100km transmission line Russia would be building from Karachi to Lahore at a cost of $2.5 billion by 2020.
The 42" diameter gas pipeline would be laid from Pakland to Sawan gas field to what SSGC Managing Director Khalid Rahman said "ring-fence" the imported re-gasified fuel. "The 1.2 bcfd LNG coming has to be what they call it ring-fenced and move to the transmission system," the MD told a group of journalists here at SSGC head office Friday. This, he said, would help the energy-scarce country avoid line losses. SSGC's Unaccounted-For Gas (UFG) stands at 15 percent.
Pakland Cement being situated 56 kilometers off Karachi, Sawan gas field of Khairpur district is a joint venture of OMV Pakistan, its operator, ENI Pakistan, Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Moravske naftove doly and Government Holdings. "We have some mega projects running right now," the MD said. "This is something that is really taking a lot of our time," said Khalid who Friday was visited by some local industrialists asking for the supply of much-debated LNG. The production-conscious industrial consumers, he said, wanted to get rid of SSGC's gas closures on Sundays.
The proposed gas pipeline is envisaged to deliver about 1.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to its consumers in Punjab province, he said. The new LNG pipeline, the construction of which the MD said would be completed by December 31 this year, would replace the present LNG swapping arrangement between SSGC and SNGPL.
The new project appears to have come in the backdrop of Sindh government's reservations over the swapping arrangements between two utilities, SSGC and SNGPL, which the provincial government claims was compromising the energy security of Sindh, which produces country's 69 percent gas. "It is being carried out without the knowledge or concurrence of Government of Sindh," Tariq Ali Shah, Sindh's director oil and gas, told Ogra's Monday's hearing at a local hotel.
"We came to know that unknown sector consumers in Sindh have burned bit hotter commingled gas and in turn not only equivalent amount of gas but additional supply of 1,086 mmcf gas is swapped to SNGPL under a unique concept of "deemed sales!," the official said warning "this is highly undesirable". MD SSGC Khalid, however, stressed that the multibillion-dollar pipeline project was meant to improve the existing distribution and transmission infrastructure.