Pakistan Petroleum Exploration and Production Companies Association (PPEPCA) organised the seminar. The main purpose of the seminar was to look at ways to produce substantial gas reserves that were currently trapped in tight reservoirs in Pakistan.
Foreign and local experts, who looked at various issues relating to exploitation of gas from tight reservoirs, attended the seminar. Having identified the issues they looked at various solutions, different technologies and fiscal incentives that could be deployed to un-tap this gas.
President of PPEPCA Technical Expert Committee Syed Wamiq Bokhari speaking on the occasion said that all the local and foreign gas exploration and drilling companies should pool their energies to make it attractive for service companies.
He said the government has to announce policy incentives for Exploration and Production (E&P) companies, particularly price and taxation. For properly un-tapping the TGR, he also demanded other facilities like development of expertise within Pakistan, cost effective services, tax and import duty incentives for service company equipments and many others.
Mr Bokhari explained that the tight reservoirs are of poor quality and therefore require additional effort and expensive technologies to recover gas from them. As the cost was very high, it became economically prohibitive for the oil companies to produce gas from these.
Modern technologies and improvements in fiscal terms would make recovery of gas from some of the tight reservoirs economical and help meet Pakistan’s deficient energy needs to some extent. He also stated that tight reservoirs were successfully being produced in several countries of the world and their experiences were being shared during the seminar.
Secretary of Petroleum and Natural Resources GA Sabri, who was currently visiting Saudi Arabia with the President of Pakistan, sent a statement to the seminar that was delivered to the participants by the Director General Petroleum Concession Khushal Khan Khattak.
In the statement, the secretary said that the government of Pakistan was working hard to enhance the exploration activities in Pakistan through pragmatic policies to increase the discoveries and production of oil and gas.
He was of the opinion that gas in excess of 30 trillion cubic feet might be lying trapped in the tight reservoirs of Pakistan. Mr Sabri said that there was a need to develop strong local and foreign E&P companies and service sector to further strengthen the oil and gas producing capacity of the country.
An official told Daily Times that if the government made a proper policy for TGR, there would be no need for importing gas from other countries on tough conditions. Such exploration would also help the country overcome power shortage through further generation from local gas.
Author: Jo Amey
