ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The federal government has released all funds amounting to Rs 415.807 million allocated under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP 2016-17) for acquiring four new drilling rigs to step up oil and gas exploration activities in the Country and achieve self-reliance in the energy sector.
“The drills will be in use of the Geological Survey of Pakistan to map existing hydrocarbon resources in different potential areas of the country,” official sources told the state-run news agency on Tuesday.
While answering a question, they informed that the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) had around nine own rigs with the capacity to drill up to 5,500 meters deep.
“The company-owned rigs’ drilling capacity is from 2,500 to 5,500 meters, which are almost 35 to 40 years old,” they added.
They said Pakistan was facing a huge gap between demand and supply of energy.
Currently, the sources said, its total gas production was four billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) against the demand of eight bcfd of gas, and the oil production stood at around 10,000 barrels per day, while its requirement was seven to eight times higher than the production.
They expressed confidence that oil and gas exploration production would increase with arrival of new drilling rigs and geological survey equipment.
