Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources on Wednesday informed the Public Account Committee (PAC) that out of 2,210 wells, only 947 were producing oil and gas in the country.
The meeting of the PAC was held in the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah.
Director General Petroleum Concessions Saeedullah Shah briefed the PAC and said that only 947 wells were producing oil and gas whereas 1,263 wells were being explored.
On the offshore front, he said that 14 wells were spudded while and only 4 wells were successful and adding to the country’s total oil production.
He said that the average of oil and gas production in Pakistan is 34%.
The gas sector was facing reduced production in the country but after up-gradation of facilities, gas fields’ production is increasing gradually.
He claimed that the country’s total gas production stood at 4.5 billion cubic feet gas per day.
International oil companies expressed the desire to explore further oil wells in Pakistan but due to the law and order situation they were reluctant to proceed, the DG petroleum concessions said. However, due to recent improvement in security of the country they may come back.
He said that there was no law and order problem in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) but that in Balochistan situation was still critical.
Giving a briefing on the production of oil and gas in the provinces, he said that in Balochistan there are 262 wells; 53 have been explored and 209 are still in the process of being explored.under process. The success ratio in production of oil and gas is 28 percent in the province.
In Punjab, there are 380 wells; 168 have been explored while work on 212 wells is still ongoing. The success ratio is 25 percent.
There are 69 wells in Khyber Pakthunkhwa (KP) and ministry was producing oil and gas from 41 wells and work on 28 wells is still in progress. In KP around 49 per cent of oil wells are productive, while gas ratio from these reserves is 9 percent.
In Sindh, there are 1,372 wells, with 598 wells producing gas, while 774 are still being explored.
PAC also reviewed audit report of the Ministry of Petroleum for fiscal year 2010-11 and observed that the ministry should made recoveries as soon as possible.
Discussing the part about irregular procurement of wet test meters by four officers of SSGCL, MNA Rohail Asghar said that the department should not wait for retirement of those officials who are allegedly involved in embezzlement and should take action in a timely manner.
PAC directed the SSGCL to submit an inquiry report to the audit for further examination and then inform PAC about its final decision.
The DG also briefed the committee about gas theft and leakages.
He said that there were six teams in Quetta for monitoring the gas network but still, around 5,700 metric tonnes of gas was stolen and only 1,000 metric ton was traced.
He said that SSGCL was working to prevent gas theft in collaboration with the Rangers, FIA and other security agencies.
The DG also asked the PAC to issue directives for improving security of their staff posted in far-flung areas of Balochistan and Interior Sindh.
