Sindh govt rejects federal govt’s stand on LNG import, wants CCI to decide on gas, power issues
Establishing that neither Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) nor Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) are mandated to take policy decisions on natural gas and electricity, the Sindh government has demanded of the federal government to place Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) affairs before Council of Common Interest (CCI) for discussion and decision.
The provincial government has demanded that the import of LNG, its ancillary matters such as its continuous and uninterrupted supply, pricing, storage, transmission, distribution amongst provinces, swapping, revised natural gas tariff, losses and its possible use in power generation in the country may be placed before CCI.
The Sindh government has further demanded that all relevant reports/documents such as copies of ECC summaries on LNG, services agreements, LNG supply-sale-purchase agreement, feasibility and technical reports, term sheets, detailed description of LNG transmission across Pakistan including/excluding swapping, exact details of the swapping mechanism, monitoring mechanism for swapping, existing and revised natural gas tariff, Gas Development Surcharge (GDS) etc may be shared with the provinces. Moreover, provincial government representatives may also be included in the LNG Price Negotiation Committee, it demanded.
According to Energy Department, the Sindh government in a recent correspondence to Minister of Petroleum has strongly protested the planned swapping of natural gas produced in Sindh with imported LNG.
Under the planned swapping arrangement imported LNG would be injected into SSGCL transmission system and in turn the entire natural gas produced from Sawan and Zamzama gas field be diverted to SNGPL transmission system.
The government of Sindh has also rejected federal government’s stand that LNG does not cover under Entry No 2, Part II of Forth Schedule of the Constitution and LNG is an import item under Entry 27, Part-I Fourth Schedule of the Constitution.
In the same letter, government of Sindh has informed the federal minister of petroleum that Ministry of Petroleum has made an unfounded and erroneous conclusion by limiting the scope of the terms “mineral oil and natural gas” used in the Entry No 2, Part-II, and declaring LNG merely an import item under Entry No 27, Part I, Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, respectively.
The Sindh government said that the Constitution does not divide “natural gas” into locally produced or imported. Moreover, considering LNG as an import item may further leads to legal and constitutional complications.