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ISLAMABAD: The new government has issued tenders seeking bids from international suppliers to purchase six cargoes from the LNG spot market — three each for May and June at competitive prices, a senior official of the Energy Ministry said.
Earlier, Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) had decided not to buy spot LNG cargoes for April and May.
While in power in its last era, the PML-N had set up three state-of-the-art LNG-based power plants in Punjab — Haveli Bahadur Shah 1,230 MW, Bhiki 1,180 MW and Balloki power plant 1,230 MW.
The government preferred to utilise them for power generation instead of power plants that run on furnace oil and diesel. It had also started the construction of an RLNG-based power plant at Trimmu, Jhang, which is the fourth in Punjab with a capacity to generate 1,263 MW. It is now complete. All the four RLNG-based power plants have over 62% efficiency.
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“PLL which was earlier least interested in procuring LNG from the spot market has now decided to purchase LNG cargoes under the directives of the new government with an aim to run the LNG power plants at their full capacity to produce maximum electricity.”
Apart from less supply to three LNG-based power plants at Haveli Bahadur Shah, Bhiki and Balloki, many other powerhouses, which include Liberty Power of 210 MW, Rousch of 410 MW, Nandipur of 525 MW, FKPCL 140 MW and nine units of Faisalabad GTPS, have not been producing electricity for unavailability of RLNG since December 12, 2021.
Currently, the Petroleum Division is getting almost 550 mmcfd for the power sector after closing down the gas supply to the CNG sector in Punjab and slashing the supply by 50% to captive power plants of export and local industry because of import of just 800 mmcfd LNG.
