The provincial government of NWFP and MOL (Millennium Oil Limited) Pakistan, a Hungary-based oil and gas exploring company Saturday entered into a land acquisition agreement for exploration of gas in Tal Block.
Under the agreement, the provincial government would acquire about 5000 Kanal land, which would be leased to MOL for a period of thirty years for exploration of gas in the area.
It is the first of its kind development in the NWFP and will be the first large-scale compulsory land acquisition by the provincial government. Most of the land will be utilised for laying a gathering system in the Tal Block that is a major natural gas discovery in the province.
The Caretaker Chief Minister NWFP Shams-ul-Mulk and Managing Director MOL Pakistan Mr Janos Feher signed the agreement to this affect. Speaking on the occasion, the caretaker Chief Minister said it was indeed a very encouraging development that foreign companies are reposing confidence in the province for exploration and production activities. He expressed the hope that such investments will bring economic activities and prosperity in the province.
He stressed that the fact that Pakistan's energy needs were fast growing and rapid development of oil and gas projects would help sustain the growth momentum in the country.
He was optimistic that the agreement signed between MOL Pakistan and the Government of NWFP will send positive signals across other exploration and producing companies that they were welcome here and the provincial government was ready to extend all kinds of support to facilitate their activities.
Janos Feher, Managing Director of MOL Pakistan, said that with the agreement taking effect, the company would be able to complete the development and production phase of Manzalai field according to the schedule and would be able to provide 250 MMCFD natural gas and 4000 barrels of condensate at the first quarter of the year 2009.
"Once developed the field will help meet almost 100percent of natural gas needs of NWFP besides other parts of the Northern Pakistan," added Mr Feher.
He said that contractual relationships have been already established for the central processing facility and gathering pipelines and the local contractors had started preliminary work. He expressed thanks to the provincial government of NWFP for its co-operation and assured the chief minister that MOL was fully committed to the social uplift of the communities where it works and had already completed many projects for the improvement of basic services infrastructure in the area.