Pakistan gagging for more gas

Declining domestic natural gas production and delayed import schemes could cause problems

Since the first liquefied natural gas import terminal in Pakistan started up in 2015, at Port Qasim in Karachi, the nation's leaders have been making grand claims about how quickly LNG might solve Pakistan's severe and chronic energy shortages. A second LNG terminal came on stream in November 2017, after a few months of delay, and several others are in various stages of development. However, expectations that LNG imports might grow to 30m tonnes a year by the early 2020s—which would make Pakistan the fastest-growing LNG market ever—are today looking over-optimistic. Dependent on natural gas for around half of its primary energy, Pakistan has for well over a decade suffered a supply shortage