In order to meet domestic demand, Pakistan will import an additional 20,000 tons of gas from Azerbaijan over the course of the following two months, according to Musadik Malik, the minister of state for petroleum.
Speaking to a local news outlet, he said that the Russian petroleum minister would travel to Pakistan in January 2023 to conduct talks over a deal for the import of Russian crude oil.
Musadik Malik believed that Russia would provide Pakistan with discounted rates for crude oil exports.
According to him, the government is working on the TAPI gas pipeline project to import 1300 billion MF of gas from Azerbaijan each year to address the country’s gas shortfall.
He said, “Our gas reservoirs are decreasing every year which causes additional pressure to import maximum gas to meet the demand.”
Musadik Malik, speaking to the media in Islamabad, claimed that a Pakistani delegation recently visited Moscow and held fruitful discussions to import crude oil and finished petroleum products from Russia after consulting with three Pakistani refineries.
He claimed that two of Russia’s eight different types of crude oils, which could also be processed at Pakistani refineries, had been provided.
In response to a question regarding the claim made by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari that Pakistan was neither importing oil from Russia nor making any efforts toward that end, Musadik Malik stated that while at the moment Pakistan is not doing so, we are currently in talks with the Russian energy minister to purchase petroleum products from them.
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