On the direction of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC) has scheduled a conference in Karachi on December 20, and has invited 29 companies.
The list of the invitees/participants includes the House of Habib, Jahangir Siddique Group, Dawood Group, Atlas Group, Tapal Group, Dadabhoy Group, KASB Group, Fecto Group, Fatima Group, Lakson Group, Bestway Group, Habib Rafiq (Pvt) Limited, the Sapphire Group, Millat Tractors Limited, Adamjee Group, Jang Group, Packages Group, Gul Ahmed/ Al-Karam Group, Allied Bank of Pakistan, Ibrahim Fibre Ltd, Rafhan Maize Products Ltd, Arif Habib Securities, Munnoo Group, Tata Group, AKD Trade, Chenab Group, Descon Engineering Ltd and Younas Brothers.
The invitees are big names in different areas and there is no harm in wooing them for investment in oil and gas sector. But does the holding of an oil and gas sector conference without international/multinational and local oil and gas exploration and service companies make any sense?
A number of oil exploration and production companies have protested at different levels against their exclusion from the conference.
One of the aggrieved companies has brought the issue to the Prime Minister's notice through a letter. It said: "By going through the list of invitees/participants, one can easily understand how serious the Managing Director of OGDC is in seeking investment for Pakistan's oil and gas sector.
"By the way, holding conference on serious issues like oil and gas sector is not a petty job. It's a serious business that is always handled by the ministries and other higher government forums."
The letter said: "One wonders how an oil and gas exploration company can play the role of a facilitator for seeking investment for oil and gas sector and why it was picked for the job when a full scale ministry exists to take up such issues". It added that an oil and gas conference without international multinational and local oil and gas exploration companies would simply be wastage of the money that would incur on the show.