Pakistan buys seventh LNG cargo at record $21.88/mmBtu amid Qatar disruption

Pakistan has purchased its seventh spot cargo of liquefied natural gas at a record price of $21.88 per million British thermal units, the highest rate the country has paid for a single spot shipment, as reduced supply from Qatar forces state buyers into an expensive global market. The purchase is the latest in a run of spot tenders Pakistan has issued to plug the gap left by disrupted Qatari deliveries, and it lands at a time when the country's power sector and industrial users are already under strain from high fuel costs. Qatar is Pakistan's single largest LNG supplier, tied to Islamabad through long-term sale and purchase agreements signed in 2016 and 2021 with QatarEnergy that cover the bulk of the country's imported gas at prices indexed to Brent crude. Those term contracts are substantially cheaper than the spot market, which is why any interruption to Qatari cargoes translates directly into a costly scramble for replacement volumes. Spot LNG in Asia has remained tight, with buyers in Japan, South Korea, China and Europe competing for the same limited pool of uncommitted cargoes, leaving price-sensitive importers such as Pakistan at the back of the queue and paying the premium. For Pakistan, each dollar added to the per-unit price feeds through to power generation costs, circular debt in the electricity sector and pressure on foreign exchange reserves, since LNG is one of the country's heaviest import bills. Islamabad has previously sought to renegotiate the timing and pricing of its Qatari term volumes, and has at points deferred cargoes when domestic demand fell. The current episode runs the other way: with term supply constrained, Pakistan is buying at the top of the market rather than deferring, underlining how dependent its energy security remains on the reliability of Gulf supply and on the pricing terms it can secure from Doha.