New LNG buyer Pakistan sees strong interest in giant tender

TOKYO: Pakistan LNG Ltd has received strong interest in its tender to buy as many as 240 shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from suppliers hungry to sell gas in an oversupplied market, a senior official told Reuters on Thursday.The emergence of Pakistan as a large-scale buyer is a welcome boost in the market for the supercooled gas as demand slows in traditional big buyers like Japan. Spot Asian LNG prices LNG-AS have fallen by two-thirds since the beginning of 2014 as new supplies have flooded the market.Launched earlier this month, the tender for a combination of mid- and long-term shipments “has been extremely well received,” said Adnan Gilani, chief operating officer of state-owned Pakistan LNG.”The response is beyond what we thought,” the executive said, speaking in an interview on the sidelines of an LNG conference in Tokyo. Gilani didn’t identify any of the bidding suppliers.The company launched its tender to purchase a combined 240 shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG),The mid-term tender covers a period of five years and calls for 60 shipments, while the long-term tender is for 15 years and 180 cargoes, according to information presented in the tender documents released on the company’s website earlier this month.More than 20 global oil and gas majors and traders attended a bidders conference held by Pakistan LNG two days ago, Gilani said, adding as many as 10 more expressed interest without attending. The deadline for bidding is Dec. 20, he said.Pakistan LNG will launch a new tender for 4.5 million tonnes of LNG “within a few months”, and six months later it will seek bids for another 4.5 million tonnes, he said.By 2019 Pakistan, which can only meet two-thirds of its gas demand, expects to be importing about 23 million tonnes of LNG a year via five terminals to fuel power stations and vehicles.”We are buying for our baseload needs,” he said. “Price is the main variable.”