ISLAMABAD: Federal Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan has invited foreign investors to seek huge investment and business opportunities by exploring the open market regime in Pakistan’s LNG sector.
The energy minister was addressing the LNG Producer-Consumer Conference 2020, Japan, through a video link.
He said that Pakistan had been a gas producing country with daily production of over 4 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD), which was sufficient to meet its demands. However, for the last two decades, Pakistan has been facing shortage of gas supply due to 5pc yearly decline in production and steady growth in demand for the domestic and commercial sector, he added.
The minister informed that Pakistan had been setting up gas pipeline infrastructure for import of gas to meet the gap between the supply and demand in the country. He also updated the audience on the key initiatives taken by the government to expand the footprint of the private sector in the LNG sector.
He apprised the participants of commissioning of new LNG terminals and expansion of transport capacity of the existing RLNG pipeline by laying an additional pipeline with 1,600 MMCFD to evacuate additional RLNG volumes from the two existing terminals and from the LNG terminals being developed by the private sector.
He said the government has allowed the private sector to participate in utilizing the gas network of Sui companies via third-party access dispensation whereby the private sector could import LNG, holding title of the commodity (LNG & RLNG), whereas state entities would provide regasification services at a tariff determined by the regulator.
