ISLAMABAD – Russia and Pakistan are negotiating potential energy dealsworth in excess of $10 billion, according to Pakistani energy officials.Khawaja Asif said four to five huge power projects “will cement ourrelationship further”.

Russia last month appointed an honorary counsel in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa,where its companies are in talks to build an oil refinery and a powerstation.

But the biggest deals focus on gas supply and infrastructure to Pakistan,one of the world’s fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) importmarkets.

In October, Pakistan and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement onenergy, paving the way for Russian state giant Gazprom to enternegotiations to supply LNG to Pakistan.

The talks are expected to conclude within three months and Gazprom isconsidered “one of the front-runners” to clinch a long-term supply deal,according to the Pakistani official. There is also growing confidence thata gas pipeline due to be built by Russia, stretching 1,100 km from Lahoreto Karachi, will go ahead.

US sanctions against Russian state conglomerate Rostec, as well as adispute over North-South pipeline transport fees, have held up the $2billion project since it was signed in 2015.

The North-South pipeline would be the biggest infrastructure deal by Russiasince early 1970s, when Soviet engineers constructed the Pakistan SteelMills.

A Russian company, according to the defence minister, is eying up a deal totake over the disused Soviet-built steel mills.