Italy’s Eni, a unit of PetroChina, and two commodity traders have bid in Pakistan’s huge tender for supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for ten years estimated to be worth up to US$6 billion, Reuters reported on Friday, quoting two sources with knowledge of the matter.
The tender issued by Pakistan LNG Limited is for a master sale and purchase agreement (MSPA) for a period of ten years, under which the seller will supply 240 cargoes of LNG to Pakistan, two each month.
The deadline for submission of bids expired on Thursday and Pakistan has already opened the bids with technical information.
Pakistan LNG is scheduled to announce the awarding of the tender on August 16.
Pakistan aims to receive the first two cargoes under the tender between September 2019 and March 2020.
According to Reuters’s sources, the bidders in the tender were Italy’s oil and gas major Eni, PetroChina International Singapore, commodity trading giant Trafigura, and the trading unit of Azerbaijan’s state-held oil firm SOCAR.
“Technical bids for our long term LNG supply to Pakistan tender were received and opened yesterday. Evaluations are underway. In the past for spot cargoes we open commercial offers on the next day but the timelines are slightly different for long term tender,” Pakistan LNG said on Twitter on Friday.
Qatar is currently the largest LNG supplier to Pakistan, which is expected to be one of the key drivers of global and Asian LNG demand growth in the coming years, alongside China and Thailand. Pakistan has a 15-year LNG supply deal with Qatar as of 2016.
The South Asian country also has a five-year agreement with commodity trader Gunvor and a 15-year contract to import LNG delivered by Eni.
The global LNG market could be in for a wild ride in the next five years with major swings between demand and supply excess, BloombergNEF said in its latest LNG outlook in May, noting that Thailand and Pakistan would become “important engines of LNG demand growth” from 2022 onwards.
Source: Oilprice.com