Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Amanullah Khan Jadoon on Tuesday said that natural gas would dominate the 21st century as the cleanest fuel abundantly available globally. He observed these views while inaugurating a 2-day Annual Technical Conference of Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geo-scientist (PAPG) here.
The conference is being attended by more than 1000 petroleum engineers and geologists from home and abroad. Pakistan, he said, is fortunate to have adequate gas resources as well as infrastructure.
A shift to gas is the least cost and preferred option for economic benefits, security of energy supplies, societal equity environmental improvement, strategic regional co-operation and peace, he added.
Jadoon said the government was following the policy of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation and good governance in oil and gas sector providing liberal pricing mechanism will unprecedented incentives for the exploration and production activities.
He said that Pakistan's primary energy supplies amount to 58 million tons of oil equivalent (TOE) while oil and gas form more than 3/1 of commercial energy supply mix. The minister said the government was assuming the expected GDP growth rate of about 7 percent per annum in the coming years and its energy requirements would increase to over 360 million tons of oil equivalent by 2030.
He said to meet the additional requirement of energy to fuel economic growth and social development in a sustainable manner, the government was mobilising all the resources to increase the indigenous production of energy and seeking private investment for the development of oil and gas resources and infrastructure.
The minister was confident that the event would provide ample opportunity to share knowledge experience technologies and techniques in diverse areas of petroleum engineering and geo-sciences to contribute the government efforts for attracting more investment in the oil and gas sector.
In his welcome address, Chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Syed Munsif Raza highlighted the importance of annual gathering of galaxy of petroleum experts said that it would benefit the participants from home and abroad to learn from each other's experience and emerging technologies in the oil and gas sector.
President of Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geologists Dr Side Khan Jadoon also spoke about the achievements made in the field of oil and gas sector.
The minister also gave lifetime achievement award to S M H Rizvi for his meritorious services for the petroleum sector. Shields were also presented to SPE and PAPG corporate and executive members by the chief guest.