International moot on petroleum sector: Need to revisit Petroleum Policy 2012 stressed

Oil and gas exploration companies have stressed the need for bringing amendments to the Petroleum Policy 2012 and restricting the oil and gas regulator to take timely decisions.
In an international conference on petroleum sector here on Monday, Managing Director Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) Zahid Mir suggested that the policy of Petroleum Policy 2012 related to pricing is fine but it needs to be further revisited in terms of other facilitation for oil and gas sector in the wake of global prevailing environment.
He said the government must also focus on the financial and other difficulties being faced by the oil and gas companies. He said the circular debt of OGDCL was around Rs 50 billion and each month Rs 5 to 8 billion further add to the debt.
Managing Director Polish Oil & Gas Company, Pakistan Branch, Andrzej Kaczorowski said the procedure and process to invest in Pakistan is very lengthy. Citing an example, he said in Europe, the decisions related to oil and gas sector investment came in longer than one month but unfortunately it came in Pakistan not even in one year.
Managing Director Interstate Gas Company Mobin Saulat said that price of LNG is around 20 percent higher than gas imported through gas pipeline projects including Turkmenistan-Afghanistan Pakistan India (TAPI) and Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline projects. He further said that the progress on TAPI is fast and financial closure would be held in 2019.
Minister for Maritime Affairs, Syed Ali Haider Zahdi said that a freight corridor project would be launched with an initial investment of $ 8 billion. Under the corridor project, facilities at Port Qasim and Karachi Port would be inter-linked. He maintained that freight corridor would be based on the models built by Hong Kong and Singapore.
He further said that negotiations with a Chinese firm are under way for introducing one port concept in the country.
Federal Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan said despite being blessed with several gas discoveries since the country's independence, there is a gap between supply and demand. Pakistan imports nearly 80 percent of energy requirement from international market. "We are struggling to keep up with an increasing energy import bill which has adversely affected our trade deficit," he said.
He further said, "We have a huge challenge to arrange the best and cost-efficient fuel mix to meet our annual needs which are growing at over 8 percent per annum. Oil and gas including LNG are major components of our energy mix and are over 75 percent of primary energy supplies."
Ghulam Sarwar Khan forecast growth in oil trade and transportation after the successful execution of the CPEC and industrial and infrastructure activities along the CPEC route.
This government, he said, has decided to completely phase out the use of furnace oil in the thermal power plants. The existing oil refineries in Pakistan will have to reconfigure themselves to reduce the production of furnace oil, he added.
Khan mentioned that government is working towards better oil and gas exploration in Pakistan and new blocks will be offered very soon for exploration. Pakistan provides a level-playing field for all exploration and production companies and even state-owned E&P companies also have to participate in bidding rounds and compete with other firms. Prices offered to E&P companies for gas discoveries by Pakistan are the best in the region, besides many other incentives.
The Indus offshore is the second largest submarine fan system in the world and analogous to the prolific oil and gas producing Niger, Mahakam, Nile Deltas and Krishna Godavari Basin. It is heartening that presently ExxonMobil, Eni, OGDCL and PPL are working on Kekra-I. Deep water offshore drilling offers promising prospects. It provides an opportunity for big discoveries which can be realised through employing state-of-the-art seismic and drilling techniques. We have high hopes from Karachi off shore drilling project and God willing, we will hear good news. Apart from this, the USAID study has established 95 TCF gas and 14 billion barrels oil technically recoverable in Indus Basin.
The study for remaining parts of the country will be conducted in Phase-II. Pakistan needs assistance of interested foreign E&P companies in this field to economically exploit these non-conventional hydrocarbon resources. Simultaneously the international pipelines are an important source of gas for Pakistan and Islamabad has recently signed an MoU with a major Russian company to establish an offshore gas pipeline. Work on TAPI gas pipeline is progressing and it's a very important project to meet Pakistan's energy requirements.