ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday regretted the unwarranted criticism on the government policies, and said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government formulated a policy and pursued it vigorously and today its positive results were evident.
“Today things are moving forward. We have new reserves, oil production has increased to 100,000 barrels per day, which was substantial but still not enough,” the prime minister said while addressing the inaugural session of the Pakistan Oil and Gas Conference 2017 on the topic of “Emerging fuel mix for Pakistan and marketing outlook” in Islamabad.
The prime minister said the PML-N government fully delivered on its promises and effectively tackled the energy crisis that haunted the previous governments.
“Miracles do not happen but it is the willingness to change, that makes the difference,” he said and added that much more needs to be done for the oil and gas exploration.
Abbasi said the local companies need to deliver and added that the government was not interfering in their working.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who earlier headed the Ministry of Petroleum for four years, said it was unfortunate that the industry had failed to come up with solid objective solutions, and said adhoc solutions were no answer. He said on the contrary, it was the government that was coming up with solutions.
The prime minister said the import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) helped the Country adequately meet its energy needs, and asked for objective intellectual input for optimal use of renewable sources of energy.
In addition, he said when the government came into power it faced a plethora of challenges including severe shortage of electricity, gas and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for the transport sector. He said today with the import of LNG the Country exported 700,000 tons fertilizer whereas earlier it imported a million tons.
The prime minister said load-shedding of gas for all consumers was a thing of the past while that for electricity would soon end. He said today all gas consumers, particularly the industrial sector were getting uninterrupted supply while imported gas was also being used to fuel the power houses.
Abbasi said the Country would soon have three LNG terminals that would pump gas across the Country and help meet the future needs of its domestic and industrial users.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi further Pakistan was the only Country that was using RON-87 type of fuel, and it took an effort to convince the industry to switch over to the higher Euro grade RON-92 which was being used across the world.
Similarly the Country switched to Euro-II Diesel that was less damaging for the environment and like the CNG had been de-regulated, he said.
The prime minister said two oil refineries of 250,000 barrels per day capacity were operational in the South and Central Pakistan while plans were afoot to pump petrol and diesel upcountry through pipeline while cutting down on the cost and precious time through road transportation. He said the oil tankers would continue to provide service for further distribution across the Country.
Abbasi said the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines would be using the imported LNG for distribution, instead of relying on domestic gas. He said now the locally produced gas would be used in the provinces from where it was being extracted.
The prime minister said the Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India (TAPI) was finally taking shape and would be operational in around four years time while the Iran Pakistan gas pipeline was stuck up due to international sanctions.
The prime minister said provision of natural gas was critical for Pakistan and was the cheapest mode for power generation. He said he had directed to put an end to the use of Diesel for power generation as it was way too expensive. He said the world had also stopped the use of Furnace Oil while Pakistan was still using it to produce 8500 MW of electricity.
Abbasi said Pakistan was also using imported coal to some extent for power generation, while it would take a while before it could use the Thar coal. He said the cost of power generation through wind and solar was lowering, however there was a need more studies for its optimal use.
Earlier the prime minister launched the Pakistan Energy Outlook 2017 that has been produced in collaboration with the NED University and provides an overview of the Country’s energy sector and the changing energy mix over the next 15 years.
