Govt to introduce more exploration blocks

Minister says country needs sustained growth in local petroleum production

ISLAMABAD: The government will make all-out efforts to increase the exploration acreage by introducing more exploration blocks to ensure energy security, said Petroleum Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Tuesday.

Addressing the annual technical conference held every year by the Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geoscientists and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Pakistan, the minister said the country needs sustained growth in indigenous petroleum production and supply to control the huge import bill.

He said, “We are happy to see that companies participated and offered winning bids for exploration blocks in a bidding round, which took place last month. This shows the trust of investors and their interest in future exploration licensing rounds.”



Speaking on the occasion, Petroleum Secretary Mian Asad Hayauddin said, “We need a high level of commitment, technology and financial resources to find and develop these natural resources. The only way to make this happen is that all stakeholders including public and private sector companies as well as government organisations work together as a synchronised and efficient team.”

On the other hand, Conference Chairman Dr Saeed Khan Jadoon said oil and gas are major contributors of energy and require aggressive efforts in research and development work. For the last 60 years, efforts are continuously made to explore conventional oil and gas reservoirs, while unconventional reservoirs are yet to be exploited, he added.



Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geoscientists Chairman Dr Nadeem Ahmad said over the last 10-15 years, replacing reserves and maintaining oil and gas production has remained a serious challenge for the domestic oil and gas industry. “New value is created only through exploration, which is the starting point of petroleum value chain.” Organic growth costs two to four times less than buying reserves or importing oil and gas, Nadeem added.

“Imported crude and refined petroleum products make 82-83% of our total consumption. Domestic crude oil production (89kbo/d) is 33% of the total crude we use (93MMbo). Imported gas (200bcf LNG in FY2018) is 15% of our indigenous gas production. We paid $4.3 billion for the crude oil imports and over $2 billion for gas (LNG) in FY2018.”

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2018.

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