Business

Kuwaiti firm gets licence to find hydrocarbon reserves

Apart from $9.5m work commitment, $30,000 will be utilised on welfare.

APP March 13, 2015

The agreements were inked for block 3,170-5 (Paharpur), which is located in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as well as in a small part of Bhakkar district of Punjab. PHOTO: PID

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to tap idle oil and gas reserves, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Kirthar Pakistan BV for hydrocarbon exploration in the Paharpur block.

Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and adviser to the Ministry of Petroleum were present on the occasion.

The MoU, exploration licence and petroleum concession agreements were signed by Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec) CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, Ministry of Petroleum Secretary Arshad Mirza and Director General Petroleum Concession Saeedullah Shah.

The agreements were inked for block 3,170-5 (Paharpur), which is located in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as well as in a small part of Bhakkar district of Punjab.

Total area of the block is 2,260.79 km and minimum firm work commitment is $9.5 million including drilling of two exploratory wells. Apart from the minimum work commitment, Kirthar is required to spend a minimum of $30,000 per year in the block on social welfare schemes.

The Kuwait government has taken keen interest in the upstream petroleum sector and intends to invest more in the exploration of oil and gas in Pakistan.

Pakistan has a large sedimentary basin covering about 827,268 square km and spread over onshore and offshore fields. A majority of the area has remained unexplored or under-explored.

In an effort to step up exploration and production, 173 wells have been drilled, 47 discoveries made and 17 leases granted during the tenure of the current government.

Pakistan’s oil production touched its highest level on December 7, 2014, hitting 100,698 barrels per day.

This is the result of effective monitoring of exploration and production activities in accordance with the work commitments.

Various steps are also being taken to improve regulatory oversight and procedures have been developed to streamline and facilitate the process.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2015.

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