Elvira Kadyrova
Pakistan is negotiating with Turkmenistan on the purchase of LNG. This was announced by the Minister of State for Petroleum of Pakistan Musadik Malik at the Senate’s Standing Committee on Petroleum on Monday.
“If an agreement is reached with Turkmenistan, the country’s energy problems will be solved,” The News quoted the official as saying. According to him, negotiations on the purchase of energy are underway with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The minister also told about the plans to import about 20,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas in the winter months.
Pakistan is a relatively new player in global LNG market, but has quickly become a major importer.
Depleting internal gas reserves and a transition towards cleaner and cheaper power generation have been the major factors driving the country towards adding LNG to its energy mix.
At the same time, there is a severe imbalance in the country’s LNG demand and supply. The situation is exacerbated further by high consumption during the winter months, which results in a severe energy shortage.
Analysts of Bloomberg predicted that the developing nations in the current conditions would face a shortage of energy and economic uncertainty for years. This is due to the fact that many spot LNG cargoes are currently being shipped to Europe, where buyers are willing to pay high prices to replace the declining flows of Russian pipeline gas.
The export of LNG from Central Asian nations may be one of the rescue measures for the Pakistani economy given the current state of the market.
According to recently revealed plans to upgrade a number of industrial infrastructure assets, Turkmenistan wants to enhance LNG production.
Currently, Turkmen LNG is traded through the State Commodity and Raw Material Exchange at average cost of US $ 450-500 per ton. ///nCa, 19 October 2022