POSCO, SOCAR win Sept LNG supply tenders

KARACHI: South Korean POSCO International and Azeri state energy company SOCAR Trading have won the LNG supply tenders issued by Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) for September 2020 deliveries.

PSOCO International offered 7.9673 percent of Brent three months average for the cargo to be delivered on September 12-13, while SOCAR Trading offered 6.9511 percent of Brent three months average for delivery to be made on September 25-26, 2020.

Separately, Pakistan LNG has bought an additional prompt cargo that it had sought for mid-August delivery at 9.3421percent to be supplied by Petro China The company had invited bids from limited suppliers for the prompt requirement due to an urgent requirement from the fertilizer sector.

Pakistan also got a spot cargo at 5.74 percent of Brent for August 27-28 delivery from SOCAR, this was the lowest Brent slope spot cargo.

PLL has been mandated by the government to carry out the business of the import, purifying, buying, storing, supplying, distributing, transporting, transmitting, processing, measuring, metering and selling of natural gas, LNG, re-gasified LNG, to meet the country’s gas requirements.

In this capacity, PLL procures LNG from international markets and enter into onward arrangements for supply of gas to the end user, thereby managing the whole supply chain of LNG from procurement to end user gas sale agreements.

Pakistan has resumed spot buying of LNG with state-run Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) inviting bids for supply of three LNG cargoes (140,000 cubic meters each) to be delivered in August and September, 2020 after a gap of six months. PLL had floated its last LNG spot purchase tender in November 2019 for cargoes to be delivered in February 2020. The country resumed oil product imports in May after a month-long absence.

The resumption of imports came as domestic demand picked up after nationwide COVID-19 lockdown measures were eased.

Under the less stringent smart lockdown in place, commercial and industrial activity has resumed. Expected annual import of LNG would rise 15-30 million tons over the next four to five years, according to official estimates.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) numbers say the country had imported liquefied natural gas worth $2.66 billion in the last fiscal year, down 20.2 percent compared with the LNG imports in the previous year.