Qatar rejects Pakistan’s demand for more gas

By Khalid Mustafa

ISLAMABAD: Qatar has refused to commit to increasing the volume of gas it will export to Pakistan through the proposed $1.88 billion Gulf-South Asia Pipeline (GUSA) project.

Pakistan wanted an increase from the original 1.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas per day to over 2 Bcf per day.

A meeting of officials of the Pakistani and Qatari governments and Crescent Petroleum was held at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources on Wednesday. Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah, second deputy prime minister of Qatar, and Amanullah Khan Jadoon, Pakistan’s minister for petroleum and natural resources, attended the meeting.

Qatar said it had already made many commitments to other countries to supply gas and could only provide Pakistan the volume of gas originally decided upon in 1990. The Qatari ambassador told the meeting that both countries had been discussing the project for the last 15 years and Qatar had committed in 1990 to providing 1.6 Bcf of gas every day. A long time passed, but Pakistan did not respond positively to the proposed project. Now it was demanding an increase in gas volume, which was not possible on Qatar’s part because the area of gas reserves it had originally allocated for Pakistan had now been allocated to another country. However, he said, Qatar would honour its original commitment.

Jadoon said Pakistan gave top priority to importing gas from Qatar and could not afford to delay the project any longer.

Pakistan also expressed its desire to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar to cope with the impending gas shortage in Pakistan, an official said. Ahmad Waqar, petroleum secretary, said at the meeting that Pakistan wanted a gas pipeline and LNG from Qatar because its gas requirements were increasing rapidly.

Independent experts say Pakistan’s decision to import LNG for two to three years will prove very costly because a floating terminal will have to be set up at a cost of over $1 billion and no one will invest in this since it is intended for such a short time.

In the meeting, the chief executive officer of Crescent Petroleum, which has the agreement with Qatar to develop gas fields and exports to Pakistan, said there was no need for more meetings over the pipeline since the project had been delayed long enough. He said his company was merely waiting for the go-ahead from Islamabad to start work on the project.

Jadoon replied that a joint technical committee would meet in Doha to finalise the gas tariff and other technical issues. He said that this time Pakistan would have a new team which would aim to initiate the project rather than delay it. He appreciated the Qatari government and Crescent Petroleum’s commitment to the project.

Later, Al Attiyah met President Pervez Musharraf, who expressed satisfaction at the talks held at the Petroleum Ministry.

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