According to well-informed sources, Mitsubishi owed company Tabeer Energy Limited has planned to set up a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at Port Qasim with an estimated cost of $400 million. Tabeer Energy is a 100 percent affiliate of Mitsubishi Corporation and has been a global LNG integrated player since the early 1960s. Mitsubishi has over 60 year business experience in Pakistan.
According to sources the company would start its operations by the end of the year 2020. It is expected that the company would take its financial investment decision in second half of 2019 to start the work on the project. It is interesting to note here that Letter of Interest (LoI) has not been issued to the company yet.
However Tabeer energy has demanded that a separate gas supply pipeline be built for the transportation of gas from Karachi to Lahore. SSGC and SNGPL will be required to build a separate pipeline, for the LNG. The existing network certainly does not have the capacity to carry the load. In an ideal world, laying pipelines takes lesser time than constructing a terminal – which could take up to 15 months. But Tabeer Energy would only make the investment decision, once assured of pipeline construction