The Petroleum Division is deliberating on a new petroleum policy for upstream oil and gas sector with incentives for foreign exploration and production (E&P) companies. The Division will draft new E&P policy with seven major amendments. After completion of the draft, the policy would be approved from the Cabinet till August 2019. In the last five-and-a-half years, there was no auction of E&P blocks.
Resultantly, gas production declined by 5 to 7 percent per annum. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar said this during his meeting with Ambassador of Denmark Rolf Michael here at the Petroleum Division on Friday. Babar said that energy is an essential driver of the country's economy and to achieve accelerated GDP growth, the economy needs reliable, uninterrupted and affordable supply of energy. Talking about the upcoming projects of the Petroleum Division, Babar said that Pakistan has a total sedimentary area of 827,000 sq km. Area under exploration is 361,000 sq km. About 1,100 exploratory wells have been drilled in Pakistan so far. Despite low density of wells, Pakistan's oil and gas discoveries success is very impressive (1: 3.2). He said that 40 new blocks have been identified.
He said that five local refineries which are basically hydro-skimming produce only 12 million tonnes per annum of petroleum products against the current demand of over 25 million tonnes per annum. The upcoming mega refineries with cooperation of Saudi Arabia and UAE and expansion in other refineries and retail chains will help meet the local demand, besides exporting petroleum products to regional markets.
Apart from this he said that many foreign companies are also interested in laying pipelines, like Russian consortium, Chinese consortium and local Sui companies. He said that the country has two LNG terminals, adding that a few private companies are also interested in construction of LNG terminals. The government is also interested in taking fuel traffic off road by laying oil pipeline, as recently work on Lahore to Peshawar oil pipeline has also started.
Danish ambassador appreciated the steps being taken by the present government to augment Pakistan's oil and gas sector and remained confident of greater Danish involvement in Pakistan's energy sector in the years to come. Danish ambassador mentioned that many Danish manufacturers are interested in investing in wind turbines.
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