ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik on Wednesday clarified that Islamabad had not reached any agreement with Moscow to import crude oil from Russia at a discounted rate. 

The minister was rebutting a report in The News, a Pakistani English-language daily, which claimed that Islamabad and Moscow have agreed to restart their crude oil trade from January 2025.

The report said that the deal between the two sides was reached during the recent 9th Inter-Governmental Commission meeting in Moscow. As per the deal, the Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) would import one cargo each month under the government-to-government arrangement, the report said. 

“The reports of importing crude from Russia on the discounted rate are false,” Malik told reporters at an informal briefing. “No deal is reached with Russia regarding import of the crude oil.”

Meanwhile, in a letter addressed to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), the PRL also rejected the news report. 

“We would like to clarify that no such agreement has been made,” it said. “We remain committed to transparency and will keep our stakeholders informed of any developments directly through our official channels.”

Separately, Malik said the government was pursuing an investment from Saudi Arabia for around $8-$10 billion for a greenfield refinery project, adding that a feasibility report for it would be available by the end of this month.

“We will receive the draft of the feasibility report by December 24,” he said. “This greenfield refinery project will fetch an investment of $8-$10 billion.”

The minister said that multiple Saudi companies were taking an interest in Pakistan’s mining sector.

He spoke about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signing agreements in October worth $2.8 billion for investments in different sectors including energy, information technology and food.

“We have signed 34 MoUs and seven agreements with Saudi Arabia worth $2.8 billion in a recent period of the government,” Malik said. 

He said that the Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) and a Saudi company were close to signing another agreement of $1.7 billion. 

Talking about the much-stalled Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, Malik said the government would try to get sanctions waived from the US to complete it. 

“We will try to get exemption on the US sanctions to complete the IP gas pipeline project,” he said. “It is not in the interest of the country to talk further on it.”

The countries signed an agreement to construct the pipeline from Iran’s South Fars gas field to Pakistan’s Balochistan and Sindh provinces in 2010, but work on Pakistan’s portion has been held up due to fears of US sanctions.

The 1,900 kilometer (1,180 mile) pipeline was meant to supply 750 million to one billion cubic feet per day of natural gas for 25 years to meet Pakistan’s rising energy needs.

Malik said no additional cargo of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) was being imported from Qatar for the winter season as a surplus quantity of the commodity was already available for consumption.

“We have held up five additional cargos of the LNG for now, and five other cargos could also be delayed for the next year,” the minister said.