ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Ground breaking ceremony of the $2 billion North-South gas pipeline project is likely to be performed in December this year, official sources said Tuesday.
“It is expected that the Russian side will submit the financing plan during the current week. The service/BOOT Agreement to be finalized by the end of next month and the groundbreaking is likely in December, 2016,” sources in the Inter State Gas System (ISGS), the official project executing company, told the state-run news agency.
They informed that Pakistan and Russia had signed the agreement at government-to-government level on October 16, 2015 and the pipeline was being constructed on the Built Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis.
Under the project, a 1122-kilometer pipeline from Karachi to Lahore would be built with Russian investment of $2 billion. The pipeline would connect liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals located in Karachi with those of Lahore.
They said around 1.2 bcfd (billion cubic feet per day) of gas would be transported from Karachi to Lahore through a 42-inch diameter pipeline.
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.
The ISGS, the sources said, had completed the procedure of hiring of consultancy services for the project, which was now in the approval process.
The commercial proposal submitted by the Russia side on August 9, 2016 was under the evaluation process by ISGS and the Price Negotiation Committee had already been constituted by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet.
Due to the efforts of the present government, Liquefied 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.
