ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and China on Wednesday agreed to establish a Gas Sub-Group under the Energy Working Group (EWG) aimed at facilitating the existing and future oil and gas sector projects.

The agreement reached during a meeting of the Chinese delegation that headed by Administrator National Energy Administration (NEA) NurBekri called on Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

During the meeting, the minister said both the Pakistani and Chinese governments were working jointly to meet energy needs of Pakistan, a press release said.

Khaqan Abbasi highlighted dynamics of the petroleum sector of Pakistan and informed the delegation that oil and gas sector was a completely market based, economically viable and sustainable sector.

He apprised the delegation that Pakistan was expected to grow to a 30 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) LNG market within five years and a regulatory regime for LNG providing full third-party access had been developed and several major investments from private sector Terminal developers and LNG producers were in the pipeline.

The minister also invited the Chinese oil and gas sector companies to explore multiple investment opportunities in different fields of the petroleum sector of Pakistan including oil and gas exploration and production, setting up a large deep conversion mid-country oil refinery, laying of gas, crude oil and white oil pipelines, oil storages facilities, and supply of petroleum products.

He proposed that the petroleum sector projects can be developed under BOOT or EPCF modes by Chinese companies under G2G sectoral framework agreements.

Administrator NurBekri applauded the recent progress achieved by Pakistan in addressing energy shortages by setting up LNG and coal fired power plants.

He said the Chinese government would encourage its both state-owned and private sector oil and gas companies to come forward for exploring multiple avenues of opportunities available in the petroleum sector of Pakistan.