Pakistan's oil production reached two-year high of 97,000 bpd of oil in December 2016, led by production additions from Nashpa and Mardan Khel fields. According to figures available, both fields added around 11 percent to oil production in December 2016, a cumulative flow of around 10,000 bpd of oil. On the other hand, gas production remained almost stagnant at around 4000 mmcfd mainly due to absence of any significant addition and natural depletion of existing fields.
During December 2016, Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC), Pakistan Oilfields (POL) and Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) registered record oil production levels of around 48,000, 18,000 and 8,000 bpd, respectively. This was on the back of addition from Nashpa (OGDC and PPL hold 56 percent and 26 percent stakes respectively) and Mardan Khel (POL and PPL hold 28 percent stakes each while OGDC holds 21 percent).
Normalised flow from Kandhkot field (13 percent of PPL's total gas production), up from 89mmcfd (faced technical issues last year) in December 2015 to 205mmcfd in December 2016 and 32mmcfd addition from Shahdadpur field nudged up PPL's gas production. OGDC's gas production during December 2016 shrunk on the back of lower flow from Uch (26 percent of gas production), down 12 percent and Qadirpur (22 percent of gas production), down 7 percent.
"The first half of FY17 cumulative hydrocarbon production numbers remained broadly in-line with our estimates,' Nabeel Khursheed, an analyst at Topline Securities said. With another expected addition of around 100mmcfd of gas and 4000bpd of oil from much awaited OGDC's Kunnar Pasaki Deep (KPD) project in the second half of FY17, Pakistan's total oil production will likely cross 100,000 bpd, he added. This will take Pakistan's total hydrocarbon production to average 778,000boed.