Islamabad, 5 December 2022 (TDI): Musadik Malik, the State Minister for Petroleum of Pakistan, declared on Monday that Russia has finally agreed to provide discounted crude oil, gasoline, and diesel to Pakistan.
The decision was made a month after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stated that the country is considering purchasing subsidized Russian oil, pointing out that neighboring India has been purchasing oil from Moscow.
Malik then flew to Russia last week for discussions on issues such as oil and gas supplies. As winter approaches, Pakistan continues to struggle to fulfill domestic gas supply requirements while battling a budget deficit exacerbated by energy payments, primarily for oil.
“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.
” “Russia will also provide lower-cost gasoline and diesel to Pakistan,” he said.
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Malik went on to claim 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 also stated that Russia was “very interested” in supplying pipeline gas to Pakistan and that talks between the two countries had begun on two projects — Pakistan Stream (north-south pipelines) and another large pipeline (for internationally piped gas).
“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 will 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.”
