Pakistan makes highest number of oil and gas discoveries

Pakistan’s oil and gas discoveries in the current month have made a record as exploration companies found fresh hydrocarbon deposits in six wells that will add 50.1 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas and 2,359 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to the existing production levels.

Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, while speaking during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources chaired by Bilal Ahmed Virk , said four discoveries were made in Sindh that already has the largest share in total gas output in the country and the remaining two in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Of these, Oil and Gas Development Company made two finds, MOL Pakistan two and Petroleum Exploration Limited and United Energy Pakistan one each. The discoveries have shown presence of 31.6 mmcfd of gas and 339 bpd of crude oil in Sindh and 18.5 mmcfd of gas and 2,020 bpd of oil in KP.

Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) Managing Director Amjad Latif warned that the country’s gas reserves were depleting and no gas was available for the domestic consumers in Punjab. He pointed out that the purchasing cost of gas for domestic consumers stood at Rs510 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) but the consumers coming under the first slab were receiving it at Rs110 per mmbtu.

Latif told the committee that despite the shortages in gas; the company would lay pipelines over 8,000 km in the current year. At present, 1.5 million applications for new gas connections are awaiting approval of the company.

85 per cent of domestic consumers were paying less than 50% of the cost of gas and the industrial and commercial consumers were cross-subsiding the domestic consumers, he said.

However, now industrial and commercial consumers were being provided imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), so the burden of cross-subsidy had been shifted to SNGPL that was feeling the strain on its finances.