.:: INDUSTRY OVERVIEW - OIL & GAS ::.
The location of Pakistan at the crossroads of the Central Asia and the Arabian Sea has brought into spotlight its significance as an attractive market and a regional transit route for energy. Oil and Gas are two of the major components of the energy mix contributing 80% share to the 64 million TOE of energy requirement in the country. The government is formulating investor-friendly policies to increase the share of indigenous resources in the country. As a result of these policies, the Oil & Gas sector has attracted foreign direct investment of over US$ 550 million in 2010-11.
Up till now 791 wells have been drilled by various local and international exploration and production companies with over 250 Oil & Gas discoveries, bringing the gas reserves to 29 TCF. An investment of US$ 810 million was spent in drilling activities with 30 new wells drilled in the last year. Whereas the crude oil recoverable reserves are estimated at 304 million barrels. The current oil production is 65, 997 barrels per day, while gas production is at 4 billion cubic feet per day.
Pakistan is one of the largest consumers of gas in the region. It has well developed and integrated infrastructure for transportation, distribution and utilization of natural gas with 9,480 km transmission and 104449 km of distribution network. The two gas distribution companies plan to invest over US$ 300 million to increase the capacity of existing transmission and distribution network.
Presently, the two most important pipeline projects that are being discussed include Iran-Pakistan (IP) Gas pipeline and Turkmenistan -Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline projects. The IP project will require total investment of US$ 7 billion and will provide around 750 MMCFD of gas, whereas the TAPI project worth US$ 7.6 billion will provide 1.365 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to Pakistan.
Currently seven refineries are operating in the country with a refinery capacity of 13 million tonnes per year.
Pakistan is now the largest CNG user in the world. Presently, there are 3329 CNG stations operating with an investment of UD$1 billion, serving 2.5 million vehicles in the country.
LPG
LPG is an environment friendly and economical fossil fuel available in Pakistan. People in remote areas having no access to natural gas are the major users of LPG. The annual LPG consumption is 600,000 tonnes out of which 20% is met through imports . An investment of US$ 10.5 million has been made in order to develop the LPG supply infrastructure. The import of LPG for the current year is 55826.4 MT.
COAL:
Pakistan has one of the largest coal reserves in the world which are estimated at over 185 billion tones. An investment of US$ 94 million was made for the development of Thar Coal infrastructure during last year. Thar Coal Project has immense potential to cater to the increasing national energy requirement for decades with a relatively low unit cost.