PSO to sign POL products’ sale/purchase agreement with Turkish company

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is set to start negotiations with Turkish Petroleum International Company (TPIC) to sign an agreement for sale and purchase of petroleum products.

The agreement is being finalized in line with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Pakistan and Turkey on February 23, 2017, official sources told APP.

They said a draft term sale/purchase agreement for petroleum products had been prepared and shared with the Turkish company to materialize the deal, adding that negotiation between the PSO and TPIC were expected to start soon.

The negotiations from PSO side would be led by the Price Negotiation Committee which has been constituted by its Board of Management.

Answering a question, the sources said Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) was also negotiating supply of Liquefied Natural Gas from State Oil Company of Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) under an inter-governmental agreement signed last year.

A Price Negotiating Committee (PNC) has been constituted with approval of Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet to discuss LNG pricing issues between PLL and SOCAR, they added.

Following the agreement, the sources said, Pakistan had nominated the PSO, PLL, Pakistan LNG Terminal Limited (PLTL), Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) for negotiating the sale and purchase agreement for petroleum products, LNG supply and establishment of LNG terminals. While, the Azerbaijani side nominated the SOCAR for the purpose.

The sources said draft of sale and purchase agreement for petroleum products had been prepared by PSO and negotiations in this regard was expected to start with SOCAR shortly.

Answering a question, they said world major players were showing keen interest to invest in LNG sector of Pakistan after seeing immense business potential of the commodity here.

"LNG is the cheapest source of fuel and the world's major players are showing interest to invest in LNG sector of Pakistan by setting up their own terminals and developing transmission network to supply the commodity to consumers," they said.

Before LNG import, they said Pakistan was importing one million ton fertilizer per year and now it was exporting over six million tons fertilizer, besides entire power generation sector was getting smooth gas supply.