Pakistan's state-owned Sui Southern Gas Company has received 17 bids from foreign and local companies to supply 500,000 Mcf/day of LNG for up to 10 years to its gas transmission system, a company executive said Wednesday.
This follows an invitation issued May 30 for bids or expressions of interest to supply LNG to the company's transmission system from the first or second quarter of 2012.
Among the 17 companies to respond were Shell Gas and Power Developments, Granada Group of Companies, PK Energy, Vitol, LNG Energy Limited and the Iran Liquefied Gas Company, the executive said.
The company selected will develop a LNG Floating Storage and Re-gasification Unit and build a connecting pipeline from the terminal to the nearest entry point into the SSGC transmission system.
Pakistan is facing a gas shortfall of about 1 Bcf/d, with consumption at around 5.2 Bcf/d and production at 4.2 Bcf/d. This is expected to increase to a shortfall of 3.18 Bcf/d in 2014, with projected gas supply of 4.28 Bcf/d and demand of 7.46 Bcf/d.
The government in March decided to proceed with the option of building an offshore LNG terminal, instead of an earlier plan for an onshore terminal, which had been awarded to Dutch company 4Gas but struck down by a court in April 2010.
Having received the 17 bids, the government will now move to identifying a site for the offshore platform -- expected to cost $150 million -- within a 22 nautical mile radius of Pakistan's port city of Karachi. The capacity of the terminal has yet to be decided, but a government official said earlier it would be able to handle at least 3.5 million mt/year in LNG imports.
