KARACHI: Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the sole importer of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for the country, has imported as many as 42 vessels of the fuel in the first 17 months of the import facility being made available, stated a company hand-out Thursday.
“PSO successfully imported 42 cargos carrying 133,307,087 mmbtu of LNG since March 2015 to meet energy requirements of the country,” said the PSO hand-out.
Earlier this year, the company signed a 15 years agreement with Qatargas for the import of up to 3.75 million tonnes of LNG every year. “Under the agreement, PSO emerged as the sole LNG buyer for Pakistan on the basis of the company’s established international credibility and expertise in effectively maintaining energy supply chains,” it said.
PSO imports the LNG under competitive bidding and through short and long term contracts, according to the notice. LNG is being increasingly used in power plants for electricity generation. “The proactive steps taken by PSO to timely import LNG have helped to minimise the existing demand supply gap in the natural gas sector.
“At present, the country’s total gas production is almost 4 bcfd compared to the demand of 8 bcfd. The production is expected to take a further dip in coming years due to depletion of existing gas reserves swelling the shortfall.”
