KARACHI: The country’s second liquefied natural gas (LNG)
import terminal, established by Pakistan GasPort Consortium Ltd (PGPC)
at Port Qasim, shall resume gas supplies to the national system by the
Friday evening, the company claimed in a statement released on Thursday.
The terminal suffered a major disruption during trial runs after a pipe burst.
“Operations
at the recently inaugurated terminal had been suspended for a few days
during routine commissioning tests—which include pumping gas to test the
integrity of the system—after a leak was detected in an insulation
joint connecting the PGPC system to the connecting pipeline
infrastructure,” the company statement added, claiming that the leak was
“promptly stopped”.
“The joint has been replaced, and
the system is being purged and repressurised. There are no faults with
the jetty and marine works or the Floating Storage and Regasification
Unit (FSRU) or the subsea section of the pipeline,” the statement
continued, emphasising that “there has been no blast”.
The
terminal represents an investment of about half a billion dollars by
PGPC in the jetty and marine works, Norway’s BW Group in the brand new
and state-of-the-art FSRU, and Fauji Oil Terminal & Distribution
Company Ltd (FOTCO) in the pipeline infrastructure from the jetty to the
national gas grid. The terminal was inaugurated on Nov 20 and received
its first LNG cargo on Nov 24.
Xinjiang Petroleum
Engineering Construction Company Ltd (XPE) led the Chinese consortium
that built the terminal, the construction and commissioning of which
have been supervised by independent international consultants to ensure
quality of work and safe operations.
The government is
relying heavily on the supplies from this terminal to mitigate gas
loadshedding in the winter months, when consumption spikes, as well as
to feed its growing fleet of LNG-based power plants.
