Reuters reported on 4 November 2025 that Pakistan LNG Limited had agreed to cancel 21 cargoes under its long-term contract with Eni. A PLL document to the Ministry of Energy dated 22 October said 11 cargoes planned for 2026 and 10 for 2027 would be cancelled at the request of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines, and two sources said Eni had agreed under the contract's flexibility provisions. Eni declined to comment.
The 2017 contract commits Eni to one cargo a month until 2032. That makes 24 cargoes over 2026 and 2027, so the cancellation removes 21 of them, or 87.5 per cent, on our arithmetic. Pakistan keeps three. Reuters also reported that Pakistan had agreed not to receive any further Eni cargoes in 2025, and that the last delivery reached the GasPort terminal on 3 January. Eni had shipped 12 cargoes to Pakistan in 2024.
Why the gas is not wanted
Pakistan's long-term contracts with Qatar and Eni together cover around 120 cargoes a year, on average nine a month from two Qatari contracts and one from Eni. Demand has not kept up. Pakistan's IMF programme documents describe a large RLNG surplus, and captive industrial users are being pushed off gas and onto the grid. Under its IMF programme, Pakistan committed in May 2025 to sign no additional external RLNG contracts because of the surplus, and the government has had to sell gas at steep discounts and curb domestic production to make room for imports.
The Eni volumes are the easiest to shed. Twenty-one cargoes over two years is under a tenth of the roughly 240 contracted cargoes over that period (21 divided by 240 is 8.75 per cent). The Qatari contracts, which are larger and governed by different terms, are where the real exposure sits, and Reuters reported that Pakistan was in talks with Qatar on deferring or reselling cargoes.
Our view
The cancellation is a sensible use of a clause Pakistan negotiated in 2017, and Eni had reason to accept: as Reuters noted, suppliers typically earn more selling into the spot market than under long-term contracts. It is an admission that the import programme was sized for a demand path that did not arrive, and officials should present it that way.
The risk is in the timing. Strong global demand made Eni willing to take its cargoes back. If the market loosens, the same flexibility will be harder to use, and a cold winter with weak hydro could leave Pakistan buying spot cargoes at higher prices than the ones it gave up. PLL should publish a rolling cargo plan for 2026 and 2027 that shows how winter adequacy holds without the cancelled volumes.