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Pakistan courting LNG suppliers

A report Thursday from the Platts energy news service says Pakistan is on the cusp of receiving liquefied natural gas supplies from international companies. Platts reported an unnamed official in the Pakistani Ministry of Petroleum said 12 international companies have expressed interest in supplying Pakistan with as much as 40 million cubic feet of LNG per year. State-owned import company Pakistan State Oil solicited interest for LNG shipments in May. Pakistan doesn’t import LNG, but said Monday it was getting China’s help with the construction of a LNG terminal and associated pipeline infrastructure at the port city of Gwadar near the Iranian border. Islamabad estimates the pipeline could cost $1 billion, with another $2 billion need for the LNG terminal. The poor state of the nation’s energy infrastructure is leaving it short on energy supplies, the government said. Pakistan and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding for LNG supplies […]

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Pakistan working with China on gas needs

Pakistan’s government said Monday it was getting China’s help with the construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal and associated pipeline infrastructure. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources said it consented to the construction of an LNG terminal for the port city of Gwadar near the Iranian border. An associated pipeline would be built through a government-to-government arrangement. "We are running from pillar to post to get this mega LNG terminal-cum-pipeline included in the list of early harvest projects agreed with China," Pakistani Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khagan Abbasi told The News , a Pakistani newspaper. "It will take three to four years to get commissioned." The minister said the pipeline would cost an estimated $1 billion and more than $2 billion would be needed for the LNG terminal. The Pakistani government has said aging infrastructure in the country is leaving it short on energy supplies. Sanctions on […]

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MOL makes big oil find in Pakistan

Hungarian energy company MOL said Tuesday it made an oil discovery in an area in Pakistan close to estimated reserves of 22 million barrels. MOL, though the Ghauri joint venture, said it made an oil discovery at the Ghauri X-1 well in Punjab province in Pakistan . It reached a total test flow rate of 5,500 barrels per day and the Hungarian group said initial estimates of the oil in place could be significant. In the vicinity, the company said , the estimate of reserves in place is 22 million barrels. Oil production from the site could come on stream as early as this month. The Pakistani Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources said total oil production from 2012-13 averaged just over 70,000 bpd. The government says it needs to explore, develop and exploit its petroleum resources in order to rely less on foreign supplies to meet its energy […]

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Pakistan needs Iran’s gas, envoy says

-Pakistan’s energy sector is in such disarray that it has few choices apart from a natural gas pipeline from Iran, the former Iranian envoy to Pakistan said. Ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian told Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency there are rivals to a pipeline clouded by sanctions imposed on Iran’s energy sector. "Owing to the grave conditions of energy (supply and demand) in Pakistan, some of the country’s major cities spend half of the day without electricity, meaning that Pakistan’s need to energy is real and inevitable," he said Sunday. Iran last year pulled out of a finance deal for Pakistan because of sanctions pressure. Pakistan was slated to get 21 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Iranian pipeline. The U.S. government supports a rival pipeline that would deliver natural gas to Pakistan from Turkmenistan. Last year, Washington said it was negotiating […]

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Pakistan needs Iran's gas, envoy says

-Pakistan’s energy sector is in such disarray that it has few choices apart from a natural gas pipeline from Iran, the former Iranian envoy to Pakistan said. Ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian told Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency there are rivals to a pipeline clouded by sanctions imposed on Iran’s energy sector. "Owing to the grave conditions of energy (supply and demand) in Pakistan, some of the country’s major cities spend half of the day without electricity, meaning that Pakistan’s need to energy is real and inevitable," he said Sunday. Iran last year pulled out of a finance deal for Pakistan because of sanctions pressure. Pakistan was slated to get 21 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Iranian pipeline. The U.S. government supports a rival pipeline that would deliver natural gas to Pakistan from Turkmenistan. Last year, Washington said it was negotiating […]

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Pakistan cuts gas supply to industry, CNG pumps to curb blackouts

Pakistan plans to cut natural gas supply by around 150,000 Mcf/d to fertilizer plants and CNG pumps to increase electricity supply to cities facing daily rolling blackouts, according to officials in the power and oil ministries. The ministries decided to reduce the duration of load shedding in the eastern Punjab province, where daily power outages last 10-14 hours, the two sources said on condition of anonymity. Pakistan’s fertilizer sector previously consumed about 600,000 Mcf/day of gas, and CNG pumps use about 400,000 Mcf/day. On Thursday, the government started reducing gas supply to fertilizer plants by 50,000-75,000 Mcf/d, with the remainder of the cuts coming soon, the sources said. The plan is expected to generate about 600 MW, still well below the 4 GW shortfall. Pakistan’s overall electricity output stands at 11.5 GW, about 74% of total demand of 15.5 GW, the sources said. Hydropower […]

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Pakistan frustrated with gas import options

Pakistan’s former petroleum secretary expressed doubts about gas supplies from neighbors but the government said Iranian negotiations could bring relief. Gulfraz Ahmad told delegates at an energy forum in Islamabad the U.S. government’s nuclear energy assistance to India partly derailed a trilateral gas pipeline from Iran, the Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune reported Friday "After withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan , I fear Washington will again be opposing TAPI pipeline following a shift in its policies," he was quoted as saying. TAPI refers to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, which the United States has backed in favor of the Iranian gas pipeline. Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Alsama was quoted by rival newspaper the Nation, however, as saying waning sanctions pressure on Iran could breathe new life into that pipeline option. "We hope that the process [nuclear negotiations with Iran] would lead to successful settling […]

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Asians concerned about future of energy: study

Energy shortages and higher energy prices are among the chief concerns of people surveyed in nine Asian countries, a study commissioned by Shell indicates. Shell Pakistan, in a news release Tuesday announcing the findings of the "Future Energy Survey," noted that by 2030, the world will require 40 percent to 50 percent more energy, water and food, amid rising demand and increasing population. The study by Paris-based market research firm Ipsos involved 8,446 participants in nine Asian countries — Brunei, Korea, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — from January to December 2013: Specific concerns revealed by the survey, Shell says, include: 91 percent of respondents in Thailand and 70 percent in South Korea cited energy shortages as a chief concern; 91 percent of respondents in India and 79 percent of respondents in Singapore cited higher energy prices; in Vietnam, water shortages […]

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Pakistani official says Iranian gas line slowed by funding issues

Slow development of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan is caused by funding issues, not pressure from the United States, a Pakistani official said. "The gas pipeline is a bilateral issue between Pakistan and Iran," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said during a Thursday news briefing. Pakistan says a pipeline from Iran could help offset an energy shortage brought on by aging infrastructure and a crumbling energy sector. Envisioned more than a decade ago as a pipeline that could reach to India, the project has come up against pressure from Western powers concerned about its benefits to Iran. Aslam said the development was plagued more by the lack of funding than by pressure from any foreign government. "The progress on pipeline has been slow because of the funding issues and not because of the United States," she said. Pakistan could get 21 million […]

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Pakistan’s Oil & Gas to Boost Supply as Deficit Hurts Growth

; Gas Development Co., Pakistan ’s biggest energy explorer, will boost gas output from existing fields by a third in the next 12 to 18 months as energy shortages hamper growth and shut factories. “We are working on six projects and expect to increase gas supplies by about 350 million cubic feet a day,” Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Riaz Khan said in an interview yesterday. “The major portion of gas would come in this financial year” which ends June 30, he said. New supply is needed to ease gas shortages that widened to about 2 billion cubic feet a day during peak hours this winter causing social unrest and shutting factories in the nation of over 196 million people. Pakistan’s production of natural gas has plateaued since 2008, the country’s central bank said in a report yesterday. Gas from existing reservoirs of Kunnar Pasakhi Deep, […]

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