Energy-starved Pakistan is likely to sign a $2 billion deal with Russia for laying a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline from Karachi to Lahore, a sign of increasing ties between the Cold War-era adversaries. <\/p>\n
The deal is expected to be signed next month during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Moscow to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). <\/p>\n
“We are trying to sign an LNG pipeline accord with Russia in a government-to-government arrangement during the visit of prime minister to Moscow,” Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. <\/p>\n
During the SCO meeting, Pakistan and India are expected to get permanent membership of the SCO regional forum. <\/p>\n
The paper reported that in addition to financing the pipeline, Russia has also agreed to export LNG in a bid to help ease energy shortages in Pakistan and this issue will come up for discussion during the bilateral talks. <\/p>\n
“The Russian side is very positive about helping Pakistan in tackling the energy crisis,” an official said. “It will start LNG exports in 2016.” <\/p>\n
The two sides have already signed an initial deal in the form of a protocol and finalised an agreement during earlier talks in Moscow. <\/p>\n
Under the partnership, Russia will provide $2 billion to lay a 1,100-km pipeline from Karachi to Lahore for supplying LNG that will be imported from Qatar and other countries. Pakistan will award the contract to Russia without inviting bids. <\/p>\n
It is the first major economic cooperation deal since the 1970s when former Soviet Union helped to set up a steel mill in Karachi and also supported Oil and Gas Development Company. <\/p>\n
Relations between the two countries are improving after 40-year of hostility during the Cold War in which Pakistan was in the anti-Soviet Union camp and had been instrumental in the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1980s. <\/p>\n
Pakistan is currently working on two LNG pipelines as an alternative to the shelved Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project including the Gwadar pipeline and the south pipeline from Karachi to Lahore. <\/p>\n
The government has signed a deal with China for the award of the $3-billion Gwadar LNG pipeline and terminal project. <\/p>\n
An LNG terminal has started functioning in Karachi with the first LNG shipment brought by the private sector at the end of March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Energy-starved Pakistan is likely to sign a $2 billion deal with Russia for laying a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline from Karachi to Lahore, a sign of increasing ties between the Cold War-era adversaries. The deal is expected to be signed next month during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Moscow to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). “We are trying to sign an LNG pipeline accord with Russia in a government-to-government arrangement during the visit of prime minister to Moscow,” Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. During the SCO […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}