Gunvor wins 5-year deal to supply LNG to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -- Commodity trader Gunvor has won a major tender to supply about 60 LNG shipments to Pakistan over a five-year period while Italy's Eni will supply the country with LNG over a 15-year period, a Pakistani energy official told Reuters.

Pakistan LNG launched a five-year supply tender and a 15-year tender last year to purchase 240 shipments of LNG, drawing a lot of interest from suppliers eager to sell gas in an oversupplied market.

Pakistan has ploughed billions of dollars into LNG infrastructure, including the construction of a second LNG import terminal and pipelines linking Karachi with Lahore in the Punjab region, the nation's industrial heartland.

The country first began buying LNG in 2015 and has already contracted supplies from Gunvor and Qatargas, the world's biggest LNG producer.

In this latest tender, Gunvor supplied the lowest bid, expressed as a%age of a barrel of crude oil, of 11.6247%, the energy official said.

Eni, which won the 15-year tender to supply approximately 180 cargoes, entered a winning bid of 12.29% of a barrel of crude oil, he said.

Eni was not immediately available to comment. Gunvor declined to comment.

The winners will not be officially confirmed and announced by Pakistan LNG for around 10 more days, he said, as per the terms stipulated in the tender document.

Last week Reuters reported that Gunvor was set to win the tender despite facing stiff competition from Tafigura , Glencore, France's Engie, Royal Dutch Shell, Malaysia's Petronas and Spain's Gas Natural Fenosa, among others.

The current crop of tenders are a small part of Pakistan's projected demand as the country works to bring two more import terminals online within the next couple of years, making it a potent force in global gas markets.

Cheaper than fuel oil and cleaner-burning than coal, LNG suits emerging economies racing to bridge electricity shortfalls and support growth on tight budgets.

Cheap gas is also tempting new importers from the Middle East to Africa and Asia, helping stave off a deeper price rout that is hurting producers' bottom lines.

Reporting by Drazen Jorgic; Additional reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic, editing by Alexandra Hudson and Elaine Hardcastle

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