PPL plans expansion­

KARACHI: Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) on Friday unveiled a plan to increase its hydrocarbon exploration expenditures by 10 percent.

The company’s spokesperson said the company would venture into mature and frontier areas along with offshore, which are high risk/high cost, “but more rewarding when successful”.

“PPL has no intention to shift from its core business of oil and gas exploration to focus on minerals,” the spokesperson said. “PPL has robust exploration activities planned for the current fiscal year and the years to come to replace mature depleting fields on natural decline with new ones, growing reserves at 2 percent annually.”

An estimate showed that alone 25 percent of the onshore area of Pakistan has been explored with substantial offshore basin remaining unexplored that has been under limited activity with only 18 exploration wells drilled so far, many of which were prematurely abandoned due to mechanical or operational reasons.

The country holds about 200 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable tight/shale gas and more than 10 billion barrels of oil reserves.

“The huge exploration and production potential in Pakistan not only makes it attractive for local E&P (exploration and production) companies but also for leading multinationals for which various road shows have been conducted by the ministry of energy (petroleum division),” PPL’s official added.