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Thursday March 28, 2024

Vessel carrying 147,800 cubic meters LNG arriving today

ISLAMABAD: In a major development in the history of Pakistan, the first-ever vessel carrying 147,800 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is set to enter the Karachi harbour today (Thursday).The Port Qasim Authority (PQA) will decide when the vessel be allowed to enter the port where it will be

By our correspondents
March 26, 2015
ISLAMABAD: In a major development in the history of Pakistan, the first-ever vessel carrying 147,800 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is set to enter the Karachi harbour today (Thursday).
The Port Qasim Authority (PQA) will decide when the vessel be allowed to enter the port where it will be docked at the Engro Terminal, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told The News.
The FSRU Exquisite, the floating storage and re-gasification vessel, will be arriving in Pakistan with 147,800 cubic meters of LNG. The FSRU, after docking at the LNG Terminal, will re-gasify the LNG it is carrying and RLNG will be injected into the system of Sui Southern that will be transported to the Punjab through the existing pipelines.
The federal minister, however, said that the price for LNG from Qatar was yet to be finalised, hoping the landed cost of LNG will be hovering at $8 per mmbtu.The minister said Saifur Rehman had nothing to do with the LNG deal.
The Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is importing the commissioning cargo of LNG but no one knows at which price the LNG will be injected into the gas distribution system of Sui Southern as the price is being kept secret and no official is ready to share this secret. The minister is also not willing to share the price of LNG that Exquisite vessel will bring in.
However, supply from Qatar has not yet started as it will come on stream once the sales purchase agreement (SPA) is finalised. Pakistan and Qatar are still in talks over the SPA. However, PSO has imported the commissioning cargo under another agreement which is known as master sales agreement, Shaikh Imranul Haq, CEO of Engro Elengy Terminal Limited (ETPL), the company which is the owner of LNG terminal, told The News.
Official sources said this vessel was smaller in size as an earlier vessel of capacity to carry 171,000 cubic metres LNG was not allowed to enter Port Qasim as the required dredging was not carried out.
The Qatari supplier of LNG had earlier raised objections on the operational constraints at Port Qasim and expressed its inability to deliver full shipload of the commodity. Now the smaller vessel of 1.5 billion cubic feet gas will be delivered instead of 3 billion cubic feet gas per day to Pakistan at the Engro Terminal.
He said the LNG supplier had earlier reported that draught at the berthing basin of Engro terminal also did not meet the required draught of 14 metres. Imranul Haq of ETPL said that its not the duty of Engro to ensure dredging of 14 meters and Port Qasim was responsible for it.