Minister promises incentives for E&P firms

The government will bring an aggressive incentive package for the facilitation of exploration and production (E&P) companies, so that they could step up their activities in potential areas and find much-needed new reservoirs of oil and gas in the country.

This was stated by Minister of State for Petroleum Senator Dr Musaddik Malik in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

“The existing gas deposits are depleting at the rate of around 10% annually and the shortage is being met through imported LNG (liquefied natural gas) and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), which are expensive,” he said while responding to a calling attention notice, moved by Qadir Khan Mandokhel, Shahida Rehmani and Ramesh Lal regarding shortage of gas in NA-249, Karachi.

The state minister said that there was a need to increase the production capacity and “make new discoveries to meet the country’s ever-growing energy needs”.

“We want to focus on new discoveries and reduce reliance on imported fuel,” Malik emphasised.

Commenting on gas shortage in NA-249, the minister said that short- and long-term corrective measures were being taken and gas supply in the areas of Baldia Town and Saeedabad, located at the tail end of the Sui Southern Gas Company’s (SSGC) network, would improve.

Explaining further, he said that the shortage was due to natural depletion of gas in the wells connected with SSGC that would be tackled by the induction of two new wells having cumulative production capacity of around 30 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) within seven to eight days, for which a summary had already been moved for the testing of wells.

“I have a list of six wells that are drying up and causing shortage of around 55-60 mmcfd of gas,” he mentioned.

The state minister said that 24-inch and 16-inch diameter high-pressure pipelines were also being laid to resolve the low gas pressure issue in the areas, besides complete rehabilitation of the 20-kilometre old pipeline.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2022.

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