ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources Wednesday informed the Public Account Committee (PAC) that out of 2,210 wells, only 947 were producing oil and gas in the country.
The meeting of the PAC was held in the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah.
Director General Petroleum Concession Saeedullah Shah, briefed the PAC and said only 947 were producing oil and gas whereas 1263 wells were being explored.
On offshore front, he said 14 wells were spudded while and only 4 wells were successful and adding to the country’s total oil production.
He said that the average of oil and gas production in Pakistan is 34%.
Ministry was facing less production in all gas fields but after up gradation of the gas fields production being increased gradually.
He claimed that the country’s total gas production stood at 4.5 billion cubic feet gas per day.
International oil companies expressed desire to explore further oil wells in Pakistan but due to the law and order situation there are reluctant to do so, however now due to the improvement in security of the country they may come again.
He said that there was no law and order situation issue in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but in Balochistan situation was still critical.
Giving briefing about production of oil and gas in provinces, he said that in Baluchistan there are 262 wells and out of them 53 has been explored and 209 are under process.
The success ratio in production of oil and gas is 28 percent in the province.
In Punjab, 380 are total wells and 168 have been explored while working on 212 wells is continued.
The success ratio is 25 percent.
There are 69 wells in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ministry was producing oil and gas from 41 wells and work on 28 wells was in progress.
In KPK around 49 percent oil were productive, while gas ratio from these reserves is 9 percent.
In Sindh, there are 1372 wells and out of them 598 well were producing gas, adding 774 wells are being explored.
PAC also reviewed audit paras of ministry of petroleum for fiscal year of 2010-11 and observed that ministry should made recoveries as soon as possible.
Discussing para of irregular procurement of wet test meters by four officers of SSGCL, Rohail Asghar MNA, said that the department should not wait for retirement of those officials who are allegedly involved in embezzlement and should take action timely.
PAC also directed the SSGCL to submit inquiry report to the audit for further examination and then inform to PAC about its final decision.
The DG also briefed the committee about gas theft and leakages.
He said that there are six teams in Quetta to monitor gas network but despite of that around 5700 metric ton gas was theft and only 1000 metric ton was traced.
He said that SSGCL was working to prevent gas theft with collaboration of Rangers, FIA and other security agencies.
The DG also asked the PAC to issue directive for security of their staff posted in far-flung areas of Balochistan and Interior Sindh.
Source: APP
