Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that Pakistan on Wednesday (today) will sign a deal with Qatar for importing 400 Million Cubic Feet per Day (MMCFD) of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for 15 year. Talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday, he said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Emir of Qatar will witness the signing ceremony of the much-awaited LNG deal between the two countries.
The minister said that Prime Minister's visit was planned some three months ago and now Pakistan and Qatar are finally going to ink the much-awaited LNG deal; according to which, Pakistan will import 400 MMCFD of LNG from 2016-2031 with a total worth of $15 billions.
The Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has recently approved the draft of the final agreement between Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Qatargas to ink a deal on importing up to 400 MMCFD LNG from Qatargas. "Pakistan in March 2015 completed the first LNG terminal at Port Qasim Karachi and initiated LNG imports. The government has planned to take LNG imports to 2.4 Billion Cubic Feet per Day level over the next three years for which construction of two LNG pipelines- Gawadar to Nawabshah and Karachi to Lahore are under progress. Both the LNG pipelines will have a total capacity of carrying 2.4 BCFD of LNG which will be provided to power, industrial, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations, fertiliser plants and other sectors," the Minister maintained.
Besides importing LNG the government is also undertaking Iran-Pakistan (IP) with a capacity of 750 MMCFD gas and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline projects with a total capacity of 3.325 BCFD of gas of which 1.25 BCFD will be Pakistan's share which was formally inaugurated December 13, 2015 and the first flow of gas will start in January 2019.
"We are committed to bringing gas shortage to minimum level within the next two and a half years as oil/gas exploration and production companies working in upstream sector of the country are directed to complete necessary works within due timeframe, otherwise strict action will be taken against those companies causing unnecessary delays in completing the projects," the Minister said.
Local gas production in coming years will be taken to 5 BCFD level from current level of 4 Billion Cubic Feet per Day (BCFD), Abbasi added. Successive governments over the past 24 years focused on three gas import projects, including LNG, IP and TAPI pipeline but failed but PML-N government started working on all the projects-LNG import already started-TAPI inaugurated and construction on 700 kilometers (KM) long Gawadar Nawabshah LNG pipeline is underway which will be added by another 80 KMs to connect with Iranian side of IP once international sanctions against Iran are removed, Abbasi maintained.
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