Pakistan wants China and European countries to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants at Gwadar and route their gas supplies from Central Asian countries to fulfill their energy requirements.
While talking to reporters on Wednesday, Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Malik said the federal government seeks Central Asia as an energy trade partner and is looking for gas supplies for Gwadar in an effort to turn it into an international energy hub.
“We have given proposals for bringing gas through a pipeline to Pakistan. We offer to the world, especially China and Europe, to come and establish LNG plants in Gwadar and export gas to other countries,” the minister stated.
According to the minister, the government is actively engaged with Central Asia, European nations, Turkey, China, and the United States to position Pakistan as a trading hub for natural gas and LNG.
He added that the government had recently addressed such prospects with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. He stated that Pakistan had also discussed this with the European Commission’s energy task force.
The state minister emphasized that Pakistan first needed to establish short and long-term LNG supply deals because it was expected that in the event of a Russia-Ukraine armistice, an energy surplus would emerge and the Gwadar project would be a beacon for helping manage the supply.
He remarked that this cooperation might usher in a new era of energy security for Europe and others, and Pakistan could become a small shareholder in pipelines and terminals with land, port, and pipeline routes.
Besides the above, the minister of state briefly mentioned that financing was a major hurdle for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline and if European countries discovered a way to secure their energy security through Pakistan, international agencies could pitch in some cash for the $10 billion pipeline.
