Page 8 - DMEA Week 37 2022

DMEA PIPELINES DMEA

The ambassador was speaking about a week have gone back and forth with respect to their
after Business Recorder, a Pakistani newspaper, level of commitment to the project. The Paki-
reported that it had viewed official documents stani side has wavered most frequently, as it has
showing that Tehran and Islamabad had agreed come under pressure from the US government
to resume negotiations on the Iran-Pakistan gas to avoid dealings with Iran. ™
pipeline project. The same set of documents
indicated that Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum had
expressed interest in supplying crude oil, petro-
chemicals and technical services to Pakistan’s
energy sector, Business Recorder said.
The gas pipeline project has been under dis-
cussion for nearly 30 years. Iran and Pakistan
signed a preliminary agreement on the scheme,
which envisioned the construction of a link
from Iran’s offshore South Pars field to Karachi,
in 1995, and then expanded the plan to include
India in 1999. Since then, India has withdrawn
from the project, Iran has completed its section
of the pipeline without bringing it into service
and Pakistan has started work on its section of
the pipeline without finishing it.
Meanwhile, both Tehran and Islamabad Iran has completed its section of the pipeline but Pakistan has not (Photo: IRNA)

Gas pipeline to Mina Al-Ahmadi

refinery seen completed by year-end

MIDDLE EAST LARSEN & Toubro (India), a contractor for in April 2019. It also appointed TechnipFMC
Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC), is on track to finish a nat- (France) to serve as project management con-
ural gas pipeline to the Mina Al-Ahmadi refin- sultant during construction, and both com-
ery by the end of this year, an industry source panies followed the plans drawn up by Wood
has informed MEED. Group (UK), KOC’s front-end engineering and
The Indian company had intended to com- design (FEED) contractor.
plete the project earlier this year but obtained a The Indian company had originally hoped
240-day extension for its contract that pushed to complete the pipeline in November 2021
the deadline back to December 26, 2022. and launch regular commercial operations in
According to MEED’s source, Larsen & Toubro February 2022, but it fell behind schedule for
is on track to meet this deadline. reasons related to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
“The project is expected to be mechanically pandemic and was delayed in the final quarter of
completed and to start before the end of the year, 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. This led some
as [KOC] has already extended the time availa- observers to predict that the pipeline might
ble to the contractor to complete the project, but not be operational until next year, but MEED’s
it is not expected that there will be more time source said that the pace of work had picked up,
extensions needed,” the source explained. as fewer disruptions were being encountered.
KOC awarded the construction contract for The value of the pipeline contract has been
the 145-km pipeline, which will link natural gas estimated at $480mn, or more than 63% of the
fields in the northern part of the country to the $755mn in gas pipeline deals awarded in the
Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, to Larsen & Toubro GCC region in 2019. ™

The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery has a throughput capacity of more than 460,000 bpd (Image: KOC)

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