The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources is following an innovative and radical strategy to achieve self-sufficiency in oil and gas sectors by stepping up local exploration and production activities, official sources said on Sunday.
“During the current government’s tenure, a record 227 wells have been drilled which resulted in 65 new oil and gas discoveries,” sources in the Petroleum Ministry told the news agency.
With new discoveries, they said, over one trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas and 16 million barrels of new oil reserves had been added to the system.
The country, they said, was moving on a fast track towards achieving autarky in the energy sector as all-out efforts were being made to achieve the target by utilizing conventional as well as non-conventional reserves like tight gas, shale gas, marginal fields and BTU (british thermal unit) gas.
Under these steps, they said, around 560 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) of additional gas and 27,000 bpd (barrels per day) of oil have been injected in the system.
For the first time in the country’s history, domestic oil production had touched the highest level of 100,698 billion barrels of oil per day on December 7 last year, the sources said.
Pakistan, they said, relied heavily on gas, and 48 per cent of its energy mix requirements were met through indigenous gas supply.
Currently the country, they said, was producing 4.16 bcfd of gas, which was not sufficient to meet the ever increasing demand. “There is a gap of around 2 bcf of gas between the indigenous supply and demand,” they added.
Commenting on the existing Petroleum Policy, the sources said that 46 new exploration licences covering an area of 94,608 km had been granted to different exploration and production (E&P) companies.
