NEW DELHI: India’s state owned oil and gas company GAIL has offered Pakistan a deal to import natural gas from India at a time when Pakistan is going through a gas crisis, according to a report by the Times of India.

GAIL proposing to extend to Lahore a natural gas pipeline it has recently installed from the west coast to Bhatinda in Indian Punjab, sources told Times of India. Bhatinda is around 25-km away from the India-Pakistan border.

The company has plans to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) at one of its import terminals in Gujrat move this gas through the Dahej-Vijaipu -Dadri-Bawana-Nangal-Bhatinda pipeline to Punjab and then into Pakistan.

The company would offer a final proposal to Pakistan only after the approval from the Indian ministry of external affairs.

According to a State Bank of Pakistan report from last year, Pakistan may experience its worst gas crisis in 2016 when the deficit is expected to hit 3.021 bcfd (billion cubic feet per day) as supply-demand gap increases.

Since Pakistan has not built any LNG import terminal so far, this venture would be more sensible for Pakistan to pursue.

The LNG terminal will take a minimum of four years to build while the GAIL pipeline can be expanded into Lahore within months, the Times of India quotes its sources as saying.