Abbasi in Russia to discuss North-South gas pipeline project

ISLAMABAD, Jan 19 (APP): Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, along with a delegation, is on an official visit to Russia to discuss matters pertaining to construction of $2 billion North-South gas pipeline project in Pakistan.
“The visit is taking place in context of the reported international sanction on a Russian firm designated to lay the pipeline from Karachi to Lahore,” official sources in the Ministry of Petroleum told APP Tuesday.
They said both the countries had signed the agreement on government-to-government level, and not with any individual company. “If any Russian company had been blacklisted under any international sanction, it (Russia) will assign the task to some one else,” they said.
The sources informed that the pipeline was being constructed on built operate and transfer (BOT) basis.
Under the project, a 1100 kilometer pipeline from Karachi to Lahore with Russian investment of $2 billion would be built.
They said the project was of great significance for Pakistan as it would help supply the additional volume of imported gas from the country’s South to rest of the country.
Due to the efforts of the present government, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal was constructed in Karachi in a record time. Past governments had failed to take concrete steps for the import of LNG to overcome energy and fuel crisis, they remarked.
They said around 12.4bcm (billion cubic meters) of gas would be transported from Karachi to Lahore per annum through a 42 inch diameter pipeline, and “the project’s first phase is likely to be completed by December 2017.”
The pipeline would connect liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals  located in Karachi with those of Lahore, they added. The sources said Pakistan was passing through a severe energy crisis  and the project would prove to be a milestone to overcome it.