ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: Pakistan has asked Qatar to provide certain concessions and security on supply and prices of gas under the $3.2 billion Qatar-Pakistan pipeline project.

Petroleum Minister Usman Aminuddin said this at a news conference here on Wednesday after returning from a week-long visit to UAE and Qatar.

He said that Pakistan’s petroleum sector received $962 million direct investment during 2000-01, excluding the commitment of another $480 million in white oil pipeline project.

The minister said he held meetings with Qatari prime minister besides oil ministers of Abu Dhabi and Qatar and invited them to visit Pakistan. Both the oil ministers would be visiting Pakistan shortly, he said.

Mr Aminuddin said that Interstate Gas Company (IGC) had been established in Pakistan to take care of the gas import plans and assess domestic demand and supply position. The IGC has subsequently hired Hagler & Baily, a consultant firm, to prepare a study on this subject, he said.

The Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum had submitted a draft agreement to Islamabad in July last to lay 1,610-km-long Qatar-Pakistan gas pipeline. Pakistan and Crescent Petroleum signed a revised memorandum of understanding last year for laying the 44-inch dia pipeline offshore along the Iran-Pakistan coastal line up to Jiwani to transport 1.6 BCF (billion cubic feet) natural gas.

Under the MoU, Crescent Petroleum was required to submit a formal proposal before July 2001, to the petroleum ministry as it indicated a gas offtake of 1000 MMCFD (million cubic feet per day) from the year 2005 onwards.

The consortium of Crescent, Total, Trans-Canada Pipelines Limited and Brown & Roots International had failed in mid-90s to sign a formal agreement with Pakistan due to a deadlock with Qatar Gas Petroleum Corporation (QGPC) over gas pricing.

Market sources here said that Crescent had since been able to bring QGPC at a price level where it now seemed feasible for all parties to benefit.

Although, nothing has so far been disclosed about the gas price, Pakistan wanted it to be in the range it had earlier agreed with the CENTGAS consortium for Turkmenistan-Pakistan pipeline.

The minister said that he had asked Qatar that Pakistan wanted further concessions and security of gas supply and prices on a long-term basis.

To a question, Usman said that the government was reviewing preferential prices of petroleum products to reduce heavy reliance on imported diesel that now stood at around 6 million ton per annum.

The minister said that Pakistan’s gas infrastructure being expanded at a cost of Rs15 billion would be completed by June 2003, when the country would start saving $700 million per annum through import substitution.

To another question, he said that the Gas Regulatory Authority would cease to exist once Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority was put in place for which a law was under consideration of the cabinet.