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The Italian major pledged in March 2019 to Development Company Ltd (OGDCL) and PPL
cut net carbon emissions to zero by 2030 and – spudded an ultra-deepwater well in the Indus
install more than 10 GW of renewable capacity G Block in January 2019.
by 2030. Just last week Eni and services provider At the time, the company reportedly had
Saipem signed a memorandum of understand- plans to invest more than PKR41bn ($256.4mn)
ing (MoU) on developing decarbonisation initi- in the field if drilling was successful. The well had
atives in Italy. a pre-drill resource estimate of around 1.5bn
Eni’s push to restructure its energy portfo- barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to Rys-
lio has gained added momentum after oil and tad Energy.
gas prices crashed to multi-year lows in March. While the government proceeded to talk
Beyond the obvious pressures of oil and gas price up the potential of the well, bandying about
volatility, however, Eni has also come to see Paki- terms such as “very big reserve”, Eni eventually
stan as an upstream liability. announced the well was a dry hole. This inevi-
tably led to much recrimination against the gov-
A deaf ear ernment by its political opponents.
An unnamed company official told local daily
The Express Tribune in June that despite Eni’s Corruption crisis
efforts to engage the government in a discus- Pakistan is not without upstream potential, with
sion around exploration policy and incentives onshore developers continuing to announce new
to support production, Islamabad had failed to finds. OGDCL announced in late November
reciprocate. that it had struck gas at its wholly owned Lakh-
Eni and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) are irud block in Balochistan Province.
understood to have submitted a report to the The announcement followed similar news
government in February suggesting revisions from the start of November when OGDCL said
to exploration policy. Eni reportedly said that it had made two new discoveries in the Khyber
while its production had fallen to 19,000 barrels Pakhtunkhwa Province. The company also has
of oil equivalent per day in 2019 from more than plans to bring on stream several new projects
22,000 boepd in 2017, there was still potential next year. However, Pakistan’s onshore has been
to increase output. The company cited its “solid insufficient to address the country’s chronic gas
track record of sustainable production at low shortages.
operating cost” as a reason for optimism. The country produced 33.9bn cubic metres of
The Express Tribune, however, quoted its gas in 2019, according to BP’s Statistical Review
source as saying: “The government is yet to of World Energy, only marginally more than the
respond on the proposals and suggestions.” 33.3 bcm produced 2006. Pakistani gas produc-
Islamabad’s apparent disinterest in listening tion peaked at 36.6 bcm in 2012.
to Eni will have been a tough pill to swallow, At the same time, yearly reports of impending
especially after last year’s $100mn deepwater gas shortages in the run-up to winter are now the
miss. The Italian major – in partnership with status quo. Local daily Dawn reported in Octo-
US super-major ExxonMobil, Oil and Gas ber that that Minister for Petroleum Division

Week 50 17•December•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P5