Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Opposition senators on Thursday staged a walkout over the speech of PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi over the LNG agreement signed between Pakistan and Qatar in 2016 and claimed that the PM could not provide details about the price formula.

The PM addressed the Senate over a calling attention notice moved by PPP Senator Sherry Rehman.

The PM told the Senate that Pakistan had signed the LNG agreement with Qatar at the lowest price. “Such an example of cannot be found any where in the world. However, there is a clause under which the government of Pakistan cannot disclose the LNG price,” he said.

However, over the instruction of Senate chairman, the PM assured that the details of LNG price would be provided today (Friday).

Earlier, the PM told the Senate that due to government’s concerted efforts, gas was available in all over the country throughout the year to all kinds of consumers. “When the PML-N had come to power in 2013, there was extreme gas shortage in the country. The fertilizer factories were non-functional, power plants were closed and gas was not even available to CNG stations and to the domestic consumers,” he said.

“In 2013, we were importing ten hundred thousand tonnes of fertilizer. We are now exporting seven hundred thousand tonnes of fertilizers,” he said. He said all the power plants were running throughout the year to meet the power shortage.

He also spoke the contract Pakistan signed with Qatar regarding the provision of the LNG to the country. “Information regarding Pakistan’s contract with Qatar is available to all,” he said, adding that the price at which Pakistan acquired LNG was unparalleled anywhere in terms of price and transparency.

“We are open to debate on these contracts. I personally drew all these contracts,” he added.

On February 10, 2016, Pakistan and Qatar had inked an agreement for the supply of around one billion US dollars worth of LNG to Pakistan annually to help the country meet its energy shortfall. The agreement on long-term LNG Sale and Purchase was signed during the visit of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s two-day visit to Qatar.

Under the agreement, the price for each LNG cargo in a particular month has been agreed at 13.37 percent of Brent where Brent value was the average of the preceding three months Brent value.

After finishing PM speech, the opposition leader in Senate stood and wanted to speak, but the chairman did not allow him, stating that the call attention notice had been responded to. “Under the rules, you cannot speak about the PM’s speech,” Rabbani told Aitizaz.

When the Senate chairman did not allow him to speak, the PPP senators announced a walkout.

Outside the parliament, the opposition senators address a press conference and said that they had staged the walkout over the unsatisfactory answer by the prime minister.

Senator Sherry Rehman said that government hiding the LNG contract details from the parliament. She said the government had made the agreement at higher prices with Qatar while India did at lower price the LNG contract with Qatar. She also claimed that PML-N went to court against the Rental Power Plant project initiated by the PPP previous tenure but today the PML-N government had done three times more expensive LNG deal with Qatar.

Published in Daily Times, October 27^th 2017.