Business Recorder/01-02-2020

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to curtail its involvement in liquefied natural gas (LNG) business while opening up this sector to private investors. Addressing an LNG conference held here on Friday, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar announced that the federal government would not continue its footprint in the LNG industry. “We went ahead with the open access to the pipelines, terminals and there is no bar on setting up LNG terminal by private sector,” he added. He underlined the need for overcoming the energy shortages andproviding the commodities at affordable rates. He stressed the need for getting out of this mode, adding, “Our LNG sector is highly inefficient…we need to make it more efficient to lower the cost…We need to open up oil and gas sector and bring down the commodity rates for benefit of the common man.” At present, the government is controlling LNG business. The government entities like Pakistan State Oil (PSO) are importing 500 mmcfd LNG from Qatar and 100 mmcfd from Gunvor whereas Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) is importing 200 mmcfd LNG from Gunvor and Eni. The country has two LNG terminals with over 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) capacity.