Page 5 - AsianOil Week 18
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SOUTH ASIA AsianOil
ARL CEO Adil Khattak warned that down- stream closures would “result in disruption of the supply chain of E&P companies and associ- ated gas supplies”.
The News reported that OMCs have called on the government not only to
authorise the necessary imports but also to streamline the energy ministry’s approval system. They have asked to be allowed to import enough oil products to meet the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s (OGRA) 20-day stockpile requirement.
OGDC suspends shale gas drilling
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
PAKISTAN’S state-owned Oil and Gas Devel- opment Co. (OGDC) has reportedly suspended work on its first shale gas well.
The company stopped drilling the KUC-01 well in Sindh Province, owing to both the oil price collapse and problems in securing drilling equipment from international suppliers because of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pan- demic, The Express Tribune reported on May 6.
“[W]ork on the well has been suspended but operation will resume in a few months. We are not done yet,” the paper quoted an unnamed board member as saying. The official added that drilling of the well’s vertical section had almost been completed.
OGDC began drilling the well in December 2019 in the Hyderabad district. The company’s
development calls for the well’s vertical drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the first phase, while the second stage will see horizontal drilling and further fracking.
An OGDC spokesperson said KUC-1 had been temporarily suspended until it could source the necessary fracking equipment, without clari- fying whether the first stages of well stimulation had been carried out.
“Phase 2 of drilling will commence upon receiving long-lead items that are required for carrying out fracking operations,” the spokesper- son said, before adding: “It is planned to resume drilling activity in October 2020 that will be fol- lowed by fracking operations to assess the reser- voir potential of shale gas.”
Pakistan is attempting to unlock its shale gas potential, owing to declining natural gas produc- tion. Gas output peaked at 36.6bn cubic metres in 2012, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2019, before shrinking to 34.2 bcm in 2018.
Pakistan’s Oil & Gas Regulatory Author- ity (OGRA) has estimated that demand in the financial year 2017-2018 amounted to 6.9bn cubic feet per day (26.03 bcm per year).
OGDC commissioned US-based Weather- ford in 2018 to assess the Indus Basin’s shale and tight gas deposits, leading to the basin’s best shale gas potential being estimated at 7.8 trillion cubic feet (220.9 bcm) over a 146-square km area. The result encouraged OGDC to drill KUC-1 to prove up the development potential of the Sem- bar shales.
Week 18 07•May•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P5
