Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday said that the government was offering good opportunities for investment in energy sector as the country was blessed with abundant natural resources and wanted to incentivize foreign investment in the country.
Talking in a meeting with a delegation of the China National Petroleum Corporation(CNPC), the minister said the government was pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to meet the country’s growing energy needs and that the government policies were offering attractive incentives for investors to pump in their resources for achieving good benefits, he said. The delegation is visiting Pakistan to explore areas of cooperation and investment in energy sector of the country.
Abbasi said that Pakistan was currently developing three major projects including Gawadar-Nawabshah pipeline project with the help of China, TAPI project where groundbreaking was expected next month and North South pipeline project. He said Pakistan would welcome to have a joint venture on a gas pipelines project with China and the latter could collaborate with regard to North South pipeline project which was being executed as part of an agreement between Pakistan and Russia.
“The Russia side has expressed willingness to collaborate with the Chinese side to achieve early completion. We are happy if such collaboration cab be achieved,” the minister remarked. He said that in Pakistan success ratio for exploration of hydrocarbon resources was high, thus, the CNPC could inject investment into upstream oil and gas sector, venturing into exploration activities either independently or through joint venture with state owned OGDCL and PPL following concession of blocks to it under government to government arrangements. “We appreciate the company’s interest in upstream exploration, investment in petroleum related manufacturing, development of pipeline projects, up-gradation of existing petroleum related infrastructure and technology and petro-chemical area,” he added.
He said there was a lot of potential for investment in all these areas and that this was a suitable time for the delegation to visit at as the development projects were taking place in the country. He also offered for investment in offshore sector which he added was lying unexplored and the CNPC could go into the sector to have good incentives and attractive price for gas, he added.
The minister also praised the Chinese companies which were actively engaged in the energy sector. He praised the Chinese company Co M/S UEP, saying it bought depleting blocks at $750 million from British Petroleum and invested over $1 billion in those blocks. He said these blocks were now producing over 500 mmcfd of gas and over 12,000 barrels per day of oil. The minister recalled that Yan Lijin from NDRC visited Pakistan recently and met with the prime minister to discuss industry parks including petrochemical complex. He said that the prime minister appreciated the Chinese initiatives and promised full support, adding that one such site, Gaddani, was also offered during the meeting for setting up the complexes. He said that the industrial parks would be important projects and could be regional production and supply centers.
The minister said that the projects would assist the government and people of Pakistan to participate in the development of ‘One Belt, One Road’ project.
Board Member and Assistant President of CNPC Wang Shihong, who is leading the delegation, praised the Pakistani government for facilitating and extending its support. He also briefed about the company’s profile saying it was the fourth largest oil company and was running 91 oil and gas projects in 35 countries. He said the purpose of the visit was to explore mutually beneficial avenues of cooperation in energy sector including oil and gas exploration, production, oil and gas field development, manufacturing steel pipelines, process plants, oil refinery equipment, laying gas pipelines etc.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Resources Jam Kamal said the CNPC, in addition to other areas, could also go into refinery sector of the country which needed to have adequate oil production.
