Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has reported gas and condensate discovery from its exploratory well Sial-1, which is located in Hyderabad district, Sindh.
The results of this exploration encouraged the company to move ahead in the same area for more reserves and a specific area has been pointed out for drilling.
The OGDC is the operator of the joint venture of Nim Bloc having 95% share with 5% shareholder of the federal government through Government Holdings (Pvt) Ltd.
Read more: OGDCL announces new condensate, gas discovery in Kohat
“The structure of Sial-1 was drilled and tested using OGDCL in-house expertise. The well was drilled down to a depth of 2,442 meters. Based on logs data, the well was tested at the rate of 1.146 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of gas and 680 barrels per day (BPD) of condensate through 32/64 inch choke at wellhead flowing pressure of 460 Pounds per square inch (PSI) from lower Goru Formation,” informed OGDCL in a statement about the gas condensate discovery at Sial-1.
According to OGDCL, “Discovery is the result of aggressive exploration strategy adopted by the OGDCL, it has opened a new avenue and would add to the hydrocarbon reserves base on the OGDCL and country.”
The OGDCL had big land, production, and hydrocarbon reserves. It has been listed on the Pakistan and London stock exchanges with a debt-free balance sheet and cash reserves. It is fact that its huge financials are stuck up in the country’s energy sector circular debt.
Oil and gas are the major components of the country’s energy mix and our gas production was around 4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd), a few years back. There has been the demand and supply gap in the country which had become severer with the passage of time. Especially in the winter season, the situation always remained critical.
It was estimated that the demand for gas would increase to around 13.27 Bcfd but the production was too less. As such, there could be a big crisis in the country.
Pakistan had some policy blunders while making natural gas a prime energy source and allocated it to different critical sectors of the economy like households, commercial, power, and transport despite the fact, the country had never gas surplus.
The pricing of the gas too was not based upon principle scarcity and optimal utilization. It was badly over-allocated, underpriced, and excessively misused.
