Pakistan is likely to face a severe cooking gas crisis during the upcoming winter months due to potential delays in the arrival of LNG cargo from Azerbaijan in January 2024.
Before the impending unavailability of LNG cargo, Pakistan was estimated to suffer the gas shortfall of 360 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) in the next month, and the same is feared to escalate to 470 MMCFD in January 2024 despite restricting supply to the domestic consumers, the reports, quoting officials of the energy ministry, said.
Non-availability of the gas cargo would aggravate the gas crisis further in January and the government may reduce the supply of cooking gas availability from eight hours a day to just six hours, they said.
“The vibes coming in from SOCAR (Azerbaijan's state-owned gas company) suggest that it may not be able to offer the price of distressed LNG cargo for January,” the government officials were quoted as saying by the reports.
In July this year, Pakistan and Azerbaijan reportedly inked an agreement for one year, which is also extendable to another year.
Meanwhile, Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) is planning to market its tenders for spot cargoes for January but it has also sought exemptions from the two issues - one from 30 days response time and the second 15 days bid validity time.