ISLAMABAD: Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has been considering constructing a 1,100 kilometre (km) long North-South Gas Pipeline (NSGP) at a cost of $1 billion.
Well-informed sources apprised *Pakistan Today *that a plan to construct NSGP was presented in a meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD) of SNGPL on September 12, 2020 wherein the SNGPL had proposed to lay down 1,100 km long gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore at a cost of $1 billion.
They said that Petroleum Additional Secretary Muhammad Ayub Chaudhry had ratified this proposed plan ostensibly to serve the larger national interest and to benefit the national exchequer as well.
They said that Ayub Chaudhry had also recommended adopting a competitive process in the awarding of this gas pipeline project and Pakistani companies should also be allowed to participate in the project (NSGP) instead of favourite foreign firms only.
They said SNGPL had the capacity to handle this project (NSGP) while it had already served the country and saved Pakistani money by constructing a gas pipeline of a similar capacity. The SNGPL has now proposed that it would lay down 42-inch diameter NSGP at a cost of $1 billion which is much lower to previously estimated construction cost of $2.7 billion, said sources.
”SNGPL’s business plan/structure for the construction of NSGP has included 25 per cent profit of SNGPL in the proposed cost of $1 billion besides covering technical, legal and financial affairs of NSGP project in details,” sources added.
Earlier, it was being considered to undertake the construction of NSGP with a Russian nominated company named as ETK at a cost of $2.7 billion. However, Russian nominated ETK company had failed in proving relevant experience, expertise etc and the ETK company was stopped from participating in the process of awarding the North-South Gas Pipeline project’s contract.