KARACHI: The exploration activities to find oil and gas reservoirs in the country dropped by 37 per cent in the first 11 months of the outgoing fiscal year.
A total of 27 exploration wells were spud during July-May period of 2015-16 as compared to 44 in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Oil and Gas Development Company, the country’s biggest exploration and production company, drilled only four new wells in the period under review as against 10 in the comparable period.
According to a latest economic survey, the average natural gas consumption was about 3,387 million cubic feet/day (mmcfd), including 175 mmcfd volume of re-gasified liquid natural gas during July-February 2016.
Though the local gas production stands at four billion cubic feet/day, yet the demand is growing.
The economic survey said import of crude oil is a financial burden on the exchequer as almost 17.2 percent of the import bill is due to petroleum products. During July-April 2015-16, 4.98 million metric tons of petroleum products were imported compared to 4.81 million tons of the corresponding period last year, showing a growth of 3.5 percent. The imported value was $1.95 billion as compared to $3.59 billion.
Average gas discovery size is already on the downward trend. Over the years, the average discovery size declined to 65 billion cubic feet. There is a heavy reliance on 12 hydrocarbon reservoirs, which account for 77 percent of the total discovered gas.
