Pakistan to renegotiate Qatar LNG deal amid high costs, paper says
KARACHI, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Pakistan will renegotiate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply pact with Qatar, seeking better terms, The News newspaper said on Friday, citing the petroleum minister.
An economic crisis has slashed power use in Pakistan, which gets more than a third of its electricity from natural gas, saddling it with excess capacity it still needs to pay for, under decade-old contracts with independent power producers.
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"The Qatar agreement is costly, and we will negotiate better terms next year," Musadik Malik told a parliamentary committee on energy, the paper added.
Pakistan deferred for year a deal to buy liquefied natural gas from Qatar and will now receive the contracted LNG cargoes in 2026 instead of 2025, Malik said in December, citing a surplus in LNG.
At the time he said deferring the deal brought no financial penalties, adding that Pakistan deferred five LNG cargoes from Qatar and was negotiating to defer five more with other markets, without disclosing the names of the sellers.
The petroleum ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)