Pakistan is in the process of examining the credentials of the company proposed by Russia for the $2 billion north south gas pipeline project.
Earlier, Russia nominated an entity – PAO TMK – whose ultimate beneficiary owner (UBO) Dmitry Pumpyansky is on the watch list of US sanctions. Russia was insisting to make a deal with the company but Pakistan refused, saying that its ultimate beneficiary was on the watch list of US sanctions. Ultimately Pakistan had requested the Russian side to explore the possibility of introducing sanction-free Russian entity with pipeline building experience to move forward with the project.
Currently Pakistan does not know if the newly nominated company Eagle Kingdom Technologies (EKT) proposed to execute the $2billion project is under US sanctions/restrictions or not and is now trying to get information.
The existing gas infrastructure of Pakistan lacked capacity to transport additional large volume of gas supplies from Southern to Northern regions of the country. Therefore, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources had planned to undertake the laying of gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore under the title “North-South Gas Pipeline Project”. According to the plan of the project, a gas pipeline would be built from Karachi to Lahore and Russia would provide 85 per cent financing for the project.
