Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar on Wednesday said that 'tight gas policy' is ready to be tabled before the Council of Common Interests (CCI) scheduled to meet within a month. The minister stated this while addressing the Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geoscientists (PAPG) 2010, here.
According to initial draft of 'tight gas policy' to exploit tight gas reserves, 40 percent premium would be given over and above the respective zonal price of Petroleum Policy 2009. However, to encourage the companies on fast track development of tight gas, an additional 10 percent premium would be given for those volumes that are brought into production within 2 years of announcement of the policy. The working interest owners shall have the right to sell the gas to third parties within Pakistan at mutually negotiated prices but it would not exceed 50 percent of the "2009 Policy Price." Initial term of the development and production lease will be upto 30 years in area.
Meanwhile, according to statement issued here, dwelling on the conference theme "Evolving Exploration and Production Strategy for Growing Energy Needs, Naveed called for employing all available means and affordable technologies to exploit the indigenous oil and gas reserves in conventional as well as unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs of Tight Gas, Shale Gas and Low-BTU Gas, highlighting that the country was finding it increasingly difficult to afford to import oil and (subsequently) gas at the exorbitant cost, it was being offered around the world.
He said that the demand, particularly for hydrocarbon energy, was increasing year by year, outpacing the growth in economy and population by leaps and bounds. It had become imperative to go after the unconventional reservoirs as the repercussion of not producing from those reservoirs were far wide and affecting all and sundry, he added.
Naveed announced on the occasion that the 'tight gas policy' had been formulated by the Ministry and was ready to be tabled before the Council of Common Interests, in its forthcoming meeting to be held within a month, adding that he looked for to the petroleum industry that as soon as the policy was approved and announced, it would avail the opportunity from that resource, so far left underground, while every unrecovered, unexploited hydrocarbon molecule was adding to the overall budgetary deficit in a big way.
Naveed appreciated the efforts of SPE and PAPG in organising the event and also mentioned that the intellectual insight and academic input provided by SPE and PAPG technical papers would form the ideas and vision to base policies upon that would soon take the country to a status of energy sufficiency and beyond.
The minister also announced that the ministry would grant scholarships to deserving candidates to enable them to acquire skills and serve the country in a better way.