Page 5 - AsianOil Week 01

AsianOil
SOUTH ASIA AsianOil
Pradhan said work commitments for the 94 blocks would generate $2.35bn worth of invest- ment in exploration activities over the next three to four years.
OALP-IV used criteria introduced in Febru- ary 2018 to determine the winning bidders, with the government emphasising the importance of work commitments when selecting successful bids. Winning bids for the blocks in Vindhyan and Bengal Purnea, which are classified as Cat- egory-II and Category-III respectively, were selected on the basis of the size of their planned exploration programmes rather than the amount of production offered to the state. Category-II
and III basins are defined as having seen little to no exploration.
The winning bid for the block in the already producing Rajasthan (a Category-I basin) was also selected based upon its exploration programme.
Pradhan said the government had received expressions of interest (EoIs) for as much as 20,000 square km of acreage during the prelimi- nary cycle of OALP-V, which closed on Novem- ber 30, 2019. These EoIs will form the basis of the blocks offered during the bidding stage.
The preliminary cycle of OALP-VI is cur- rently open, and will close on March 31.™
PPL announces oil and gas discoveries
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
STATE-RUN Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) announced late last month that it had discovered crude oil and natural gas reserves in Balochistan and Sindh Provinces.
Commenting on the discoveries, PPL man- aging director Moeen Raza said on December 27 that only one play had been targeted on Balochistan’s Kalat Plateau and that there was a good chance of finding more hydrocarbons in the area. He told Samaa News that further testing was underway at several wells and that construction of a gas pipeline would take around two to three years to complete, given the site’s remote location.
Raza said the company was working at 28-29 sites in Kalat and that it expected the area to attract international investors. He noted that while it was rural Balochistan’s first hydrocar- bon discovery, the region is believed to have an abundance of gas.
“Corporate and economic activities will increase as well as the job opportunities for locals,” Raza said. However, he was quick to temper expec- tations of a quick increase in natural gas supplies, saying: “The process after finding the resource to get it ready for exploitation is long.”
The news comes as the country looks for ways to reverse a multi-year long decline in oil and gas production.
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. Crude production, mean- while, topped out at 94,000 barrels per day in 2014 before contracting to 89,500 bpd in 2018, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Pakistan’s Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has estimated that demand in financial year 2017-2018 amounted to 6.9bn cubic feet per day (71.32mn cubic metres).
Given the gap between supply and demand, which is driving an ever-increasing reliance on foreign supplies of fuel, the country is eager to attract foreign investment in its upstream.
In December, Pakistani media outlet The News quoted unnamed sources as saying Russia’s state-owned TatNeft was interested in exploring the South Asian country. The Russian company’s interest was flagged during a meeting of the two countries’ Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) on December 8-11, one source said.™
Week 01 08•January•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P5