After learning that the state owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has incurred $2 billion just on renting rigs and for data processing equipment during the last two decades, petroleum minister has directed the company to buy two rigs every year and purchase its own data processing equipment. Talking to journalists on Wednesday, a perturbed Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain said matters of OGDCL were in complete mess and not a day passes when some new disclosure about inefficiency and corruption in the entity is not revealed to him. The company had incurred $1 billion on renting rigs and $1 billion on data processing equipment during the last two decades. The minister said he was amazed to know that an exploration and production company of the size of OGDCL was not having a pool of rigs and was renting rigs on $32,000 per day from other firms.
“I was shocked to know that they did not even have the vital data processing equipment to analyze data,” he added. OGDCL had purchased the last rig in 1985 and for the last 25 years they were renting rigs for drilling, he said, adding that the cost of the rig was not expensive as they cost between $7 million and $15 million. “I have directed them to purchase two rigs every year and ordered for purchasing data processing equipment,” he said. According to a source, the flagship company had a pool of four decades old eight drilling rigs that was a major reason for OGDCL not being in a position to increase indigenous oil and gas exploration and production. The company earns around Rs50 billion in profit per year, but had not been able to purchase new rigs in decades. This was resulting in outsourcing of employment opportunities to foreigners at the cost of local people. OGDCL had to pay rent up to 800 days on drilling for a depth, which was estimated to complete within 330 days. Foreign contractors delay drilling work sometimes on perceived threats because of the law and order situation, which add to the cost of the company.
About the appointment of the new Managing Director of OGDCL, the minister said the process was under way and would be completed in next two weeks. He said the tenure of new MD would be of three years. Expressing his complete dissatisfaction over ministry’s technocrat staff, the minister said they have decided to hire a professional as Executive Director General Hydrocarbons on MP-I grade to steer the technical directorate of the ministry. Currently, the ministry has five posts of DGs including petroleum concessions, petroleum, gas, minerals and special projects. All the officials would be reporting to the new EDG. The post has been approved by the Establishment Division and Federal Public Service Commission was working on the criteria for the post.
The minister said he had also amended the rules and in future, 50 per cent appointments on the technical posts would be through promotion; 25 per cent on deputation and 25 per cent through direct induction. He hinted at least two incumbent DGs would be shown the door on their poor performance and new professionals would be hired. “We need professionals for new thinking to come out of the energy quagmire,” the minister said. Experts have been stressing that the ministry of petroleum and ministry of water and power, lacked competent professionals which was one of the main reasons why the government completely failed to address the energy crisis. The government has also approved hiring of new professionals in the ministry of water and power to improve its planning and implementation.
Petroleum minister said for long term planning, he had decided to set up a think tank under the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan, to advice the government on various issues and formulate polices for the future. He said the think tank could have up to 15 people. About the finalisation of transit fee with India on TAPI pipeline, the minister said he would be visiting India on January 24, 2012, to discuss transit with his Indian counterpart. They would be discussing the transit fee on both models of volume as well as length of the transiting pipeline. The ministry has already sought permission from ECC to sign the gas sale purchase agreement with Turkmenistan.
