January 17, 2019: Federal Minister for Petroleum, Ghulam Sarwar Khan has hinted to establish a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage facility for maintaining strategic stock of the commodity to meet energy needs of the country.
In a recent interview with PTV, he said there were reservoirs of petroleum products, but the country had no LNG storage facility.”
“It (LNG) comes straightway from vessel, shifted to terminal and injected to transmission lines directly for onward supply to consumers. Sometimes it (LNG) can be in surplus or otherwise. There must be its stocks,” he added.
Ghulam Sarwar said Saudi Arabia, which was expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Pakistan next month for establishment of a mega oil city at Gwadar, had also offered assistance to establish LNG reservoirs.
Besides, Saudi Arabia is showing keen interest to work in diverse fields including mineral, fertilizer, wind and solar energy.
Answering a question, the minister said it was the efforts of the new government that made the petroleum sector part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, following which a mega oil city, consisting of oil refineries and petrochemical complex, was being set up at the Gwadar deep seaport city – an ultimate destination of the CPEC.
“Earlier, there was no mention of petroleum sector in the CPEC project,” he said adding, there was on record that the new government took the initiative and made it (petroleum sector) the part of CPEC.
After establishment of the oil city, he said, Pakistan would be able to refine and store imported oil for onward transportation to China using the CPEC route, besides developing fuel supply chain for the landlocked Central Asian states.
