OGDCL’s LPG plant to begin processing by June 2017

KARACHI: The Pakistan’s biggest liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) processing plant is all set to begin operation from the next June, an official said on Monday. 

The plant with a processing capacity of 98 million cubic feet/day is located at the Nashpa field of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 

In 2015, OGDCL awarded Chinese firm HBP the contract to install, construct and commission LPG processing and recovery.

“The Nashpa and Mela gas fields are located in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the objective of the project is to construct a gas processing facility at Nashpa to process raw gas of the locality and separator gas from the Mela field,” the official said.  “The project covers wellhead facilities, gas gathering system (excluding flow lines) and gas processing plant.

The gas processing plant is intended to normally process 98 mmscfd with a design margin of 10 percent.” The OGDCL is expanding the Nashpa field by setting up a LPG plant to meet the growing energy demand in the country.  

The country produces around four billion cubic feet of gas a day, meeting around half of the country’s gas needs. Local gas production is dropping up to three percent a year.  The government has planned to buy around four million tons of liquefied natural gas per year to reduce the energy shortfall.  The country produced 441 million liters of LPG during the last fiscal year of 2015/16, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The production meets only half of the local demand, which ramps up during winter.  The contractor official said a third cargo shipment, carrying LPG plant equipment, has already arrived at Nashpa field from China.  The equipment included LPG bullets, structure material and pipes for the plant.  The official said the project will create hundreds of jobs for the locals in the province.  “The project work is in full swing,” added the official.