Six new oil, gas discoveries in Sindh, KP

ISLAMABAD: Six new oil and gas discoveries have been made in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a statement of the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Tuesday.

Abbasi said of the six new finds, two each were made by the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) and MOL Pakistan, and one each by the Petroleum Exploration (pvt) Limited (PEL) and United Energy Pakistan (UEP).

The minister said PEL hit natural-gas condensate in Badin IV South Block at Ayesha North I Well in Sindh at 2,820 meters. It conducted a successful DST (drill stem test) and found flow at the rate of 8.1 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas and 49 barrels per day (bpd) oil.

UEP made a gas discovery in Bukhari Lease at Limu East I Well in Sindh and assessed 2.0mmcfd of gas flow, while MOL Pakistan made two discoveries in Tal Blockat Makori Deep I Well and Tal Block Tolang West I Well in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the company found 18.5mmcfd gas and 2,020bpd oil flow during the drills.

Similarly, the OGDCL made two discoveries in Bitrism Block at Bitrism West IA Well and in Thal block at Thal West I Well in Sindh, and found 215mmcfd gas and 290bpd oil, the minister said.

Following the 83 oil and gas discoveries in the last three years, around 631mmcfd gas and 27,359bpd crude oil has been added to the system.

Earlier, Chairman Standing Committee, Bilal Ahmed Virk directed the officials of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to make effective rules so no defaulter of any government department could get any kind of licences from the authority. OGRA expressed concern on what it called the non serious attitude of the Director General (Concession) of the ministry towards providing information sought by the members from time to time.