With security concerns and circular debt restricting Pakistan Oil & Gas Exploration companies to tap in new reservoir, the sector continues to rely on maximizing the yield of existing reservoirs, said the analysts at Topline Research.
As a result, they said, the increase in oil and gas production in 2012 failed to fill the mounting demand thereby affecting the overall industrial growth besides affecting the transport and other segments. During the outgoing calendar year 2012, country’s gas production that contributes approx. 50% in Pakistan energy mix grew by 4% to an average of 4.2bcfd from 2011 average gas production of 4.1bcfd.
“Five years back in 2007 average production was 3.9bcfd. This increase is well below the organic growth in its consumption thereby creating huge deficit affecting the overall economic growth,” said Topline analyst Nauman Khan.
Major news of the year was commissioning of KPD-TAY that added an average 104mmcfd in the system, he said.
However, other gas fields like Qadirpur, Zamazama, Mari had led their due hands. However, natural decline in major fields namely Sui and Sawan coupled with reduce production from Tal block diluted its impact.
On the oil front, average production increase by a decent 10% to 71.6k barrels a day in 2012 from 64.9k in 2011. It was 70.4k in 2007. Improvement in 2012 was largely attributed to Nashpa field. During 2012 Nashpa field of Naspha block located in KPK region of the Pakistan, was the star performer for the sector.
“Thanks to favourable results of its appraisal wells, fields production increased by a mammoth 109% to above 11k bpd as against 5.5k bpd last year,” said Khan.
Other notable increase also came from Adhi fields as its production rose by a decent 16%. The much talked about, Tal block production increased by a mere 3%, despite commissioning of Makori East towards the end of the year. Though, we continue to have conviction in the block’s potential but commissioning of Makori CPF (Central Processing Facility) holds its key.
Going forward, near-term trigger was expected to come from materialisation production from Sinjhoro fields, Mamikhel-2 and Maramzai-2, while improved production from Naspha, Adhi and Mela fields wer also events to keep a track. Amongst the listed companies, OGDC’s average gas production increased by a decent 14% in 2012 largely attributed to KPD-TAY effect, while its oil production grew by 7%. PPL performed well in the oil depicting a growth of 12% however, its gas production declined by 4% due to subdued performance of Sui and Sawan.
2012 was a disappointing year for POL whose oil production declined by 18% mainly on account capped production from Tal and decline in production from its own operating fields.
