PSO to set up LNG import terminal

Pakistan State Oil Company (PSO), which is the largest gas importer and fuel retailer, is going to build an import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) at $500 million, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. The import terminal will be located near Karachi and will take four years to complete, the international news agency quoted PSO CEO Syed Muhammad Taha as saying. The company has an understanding with a few large customers and has begun preliminary preparations for the project that will include Pakistan’s first LNG storage facility, he said. Pakistan has been one of the fastest-growing markets for LNG, which it mainly uses to generate electricity following a decline in local gas production over the last decade. But surging prices, spurred in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine, have seen the country struggle to afford the fuel this year, resulting in frequent blackouts.