Three foreign petroleum companies awarded licenses in last five years: Senate told

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan Wednesday said three licenses were issued to foreign petroleum companies for exploration of oil and gas in the country during last five years.

Replying to a question in the Senate, the application fee for grant of a petroleum exploration license is Rs100,000 while the total amount received from them under the head of license fee is Rs300,000.

The minister in a written reply said the prices of petroleum products are determined in accordance with the Petroleum Products (Petroleum Development Levy) Ordinance, 1961, Rules 1967 thereunder, OGRA’ s Ordinance 2002 and GoP/ECC’s approved parameters as amended from time to time.

He said the oil prices are linked with international Arab Gulf market prices of petroleum products, being imported by the PSO.

Accordingly Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and Refineries are allowed to fix and announce the prices at their own on monthly basis in accordance with the actual PSO landed import cost of the previous month.

In case of no imports, ex-refinery price fixed as per Import Parity Price (IPP) formula based on Arab Gulf monthly average prices published in Platts Oilgram on daily basis.

The minister said some gas development schemes were launched or approved since 2018 in the Provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by SNGPL.

He added 62 meters have been installed at subject locality like Prince Road, Phalgran, Bhara Kahu Islamabad etc. while remaining cases or applications upto January 31, 2018 are being entertained on turn or merit basis.

He said the SSGCL undertakes the gas development schemes for provision of gas to new towns or villages on the recommendations of the federal or provincial government, parliamentarians, notables etc. after receipt of over and above cost criteria share from the government whereas SSGCL also invests within cost criteria share as per the prevailing approved policy.

The said approved per customer cost criteria is Rs54,000 for Sindh province and Rs270,000 for Balochistan province, he added.

He said the SNGPL has provided 128,909 new domestic gas connections during the last five years and 24 private housing societies have applied for provision of new gas connections.

He said approval has been granted to 10 housing societies and provision of gas is also under process in these societies while RLNG is being offered by SNGPL to housing societies after completion of requisite formalities.

He said the daily average production of natural gas during fiscal year 2017-18 is 3,997 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD). He said at present, domestic and industrial demand of natural gas in the country is 1090 MMCFD and 820 MMCFD respectively while the remaining recoverable reserves of natural gas in the country are 19.54 TCF.