Islamabad, 5 December 2022 (GNP): Russia has finally agreed to offer Pakistan reduced crude oil, gasoline, and diesel, according to Musadik Malik, Pakistan’s State Minister for Petroleum.
The choice was taken a month after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that the nation was thinking about buying Russian oil at a discount, noting that close neighbour India has been buying oil from Moscow.
The following week, Malik took a flight to Russia to hold talks about topics like the supply of gas and oil. As winter draws near, Pakistan is still having trouble meeting domestic gas supply needs and is also dealing with a fiscal deficit made worse by energy bills, particularly for oil.
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“Our visit to Russia proved to be more productive than expected,” Malik said today at a press conference in Islamabad, “Russia has decided to provide discounted crude oil to Pakistan; this is the oil that refineries use to produce diesel and gasoline.” He added, “Russia will also provide lower-cost gasoline and diesel to Pakistan.”
Malik claimed that Russia was running low on liquefied natural gas (LNG) due to “international pressure.” “The Russian government is building new LNG factories and has invited Pakistan to begin talks on long-term contracts for 2025 and 2026,” the Minister said.
He added that talks had started between the two nations on two projects, Pakistan Stream (north-south pipelines) and another substantial pipeline, and that Russia was “very interested” in providing pipeline gas to Pakistan.
“We requested some flexibility because Pakistan has many constraints. We told them we are committed to the agreements, but we need some flexibility,” he said during the press conference.
Malik also stated that a Russian inter-governmental delegation would visit Pakistan in January of next year. In this vein, he said that “We will try that all these things that I have kept in front of you will be transformed into a proper agreement by then and could be signed.”
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