US State Department’s spokesperson Ned Price told journalists during news briefing that Pakistan can also become beneficiary of the concessions Washington has offered to other countries for buying oil from Russia.
“So, we have encouraged countries to take advantage of that, even those countries that have not formally signed on to the price cap, so that they can acquire oil in some cases at a steep discount from what they would otherwise acquire from, in this case, Russia,” Mr Price said.
It is pertinent to mention here that on December 3, 2022, G7 and EU countries set a price-cap of $60 per barrel on Russian oil in a bid to prevent Moscow from using the revenues to intensify its war against Ukraine.
As Europe and the United States no longer import crude oil from Russia; therefore, the controlled purchase would only affect third countries, like Pakistan. Pakistan has not yet inked the deal, primarily because Pakistan does not import oil from Russia.
The spokesperson said that the United States understand the imperative of keeping global energy markets well resourced, well supplied, and the price-cap, and hence have provide a mechanism to do that.
Earlier, Minister for Economic Affairs Ayaz Sadiq, and Russia’s Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov, in a joint news conference held in Islamabad, said that they hope to sign an oil deal by late March that would enable Pakistan to buy Russian oil at discounted rates.
“We have decided that it would be a good idea for Pakistan to approach Gazprom and Novatek, two largest LNG-producing companies, in late 2023 to discuss the conditions” for buying LNG, the Russian minister said.
As per statistics, Pakistan imports approximately 430,000mt of motor gasoline, 200,000mt diesel and 650,000mt crude oil at a cost of $1.3 billion per month.