ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The smooth import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is vital to bridge the ever-increasing gap between demand and supply of natural gas as the country’s current total gas production stands at 4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) against the demand of 8 bcfd of the commodity, official sources in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources said Thursday.
“Pakistan is facing a huge gap between demand and supply of energy,” they informed saying that currently it was short of 4 bcfd gas to meet requirements of domestic, commercial and industrial consumers besides power generation units.
Highlighting importance of LNG, they said it was the essential part of the energy mix needs of emerging economies.
“The world is turning towards LNG and emerging economies such as China, Korea, Japan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, European Union, and Brazil to ensure LNG remains part of its energy mix,” they said.
The sources said Japan was importing almost 80 million tonnes of LNG every year (MTPA) and India 15MTPA due to the commodity’s cheap price and efficiency as compared to other fuels.
Pakistan, they said, recently signed a 15 year agreement with Qatar to import up to 3.75 million tonnes of LNG a year, which significantly improved gas supply to consumers.
Justifying the LNG import deal, they said, in Pakistan natural gas accounts for 35 percent of all power generation, 23.8 percent of industrial use, 15.6 percent fertilizer, 5.4 percent Compressed Natural Gas, and 18.1 percent of the household use. The current gas shortfall is of four bcfd or almost 50 percent of the total gas demand.
The LNG would help the country add about 2,000 megawatts of gas fired power generating capacity and improve production from fertilizer plants, they added.
Source: APP
