ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: A large number of workers and officers of the Oil and Gas Development Company here on Monday held a protest demonstration against the government’s decision to privatise the Qadirpur gas field in Sindh, which is owned by the company.

The workers set up a hunger strike camp in front of the OGDCL office and blocked the Jinnah Avenue that passes through the whole Blue Area right from Parliament House to City Bank for about two hours.

The protesters also held a walk demanding President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani to abandon the plan to sell off the gas field, “as it is a scandal similar to that of the privatisation bid of Pakistan Steel Mills which was stopped by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.”

They alleged that various “big fish” were eyeing “massive kickbacks” from the lucrative deal.

“Over our dead body,” read one of the placards held by a worker. Former parliamentarians from the Jamat-i-Islami, Mian Aslam and Liaquat Baloch also joined the protesters and assured them of their party’s full support.

Office-bearers of the All-Pakistan OGDCL Mazdoor Ittehad Union (CBA) and OGDCL Officers Association said the Qadirpur gas field generated an annual revenue of $155 million and accounted for over 30 per cent of OGDCL’s total gas production.

They said the gas field was OGDCL’s family silver and a strategic national asset. Its sale to foreigners or private companies would not only enable a few entities to control the oil and gas reserves of the country but would also lead to a phenomenal increase in the gas prices which would have grave repercussions for the industry in Punjab.

“It will be very hard for industries in Punjab to sustain and survive,” said the president of the officers Association, Aslam Khan Niazi.

He said if the gas field was handed over to foreign companies, they would sell gas at over $7 per mmbtu (million British thermal unit) while OGDCL was selling it at Rs146 per unit.

Mr Niazi said gas would become so expensive that the fertilizers and chemical industries in Punjab would not be able to operate.

The country would be strangulated economically as the Qadirpur cheap gas to power generation companies would not be available anymore and electricity consumers would have to pay high charges for thermal power generation.

The officers association’s Nasar Waraich and the CBA president Chaudhry Mohammad Ikram said it was beyond their comprehension what had made the government to put on sale the “profit-making” gas field in which British Petroleum and Austria’s OMV were taking keen interest.

The union leaders said the Privatization Commission had valued the total assets of the gas field at $2 billion while its real cost was over $7 billion. OGDCL has so far extracted 1.7 trillion cubic feet from only one zone of Qadirpur gas field, while two other fields were yet to be dug. The OGDCL has put total gas reserves from the field at 2.5 trillion cubic feet.

The union leaders said while estimating the gas field the authorities had not included the value of the remaining two zones which were yet to be put into operation.

The OGDCL is producing 64 per cent of the total oil production of the country while the remaining 34 per cent is being produced by 30 multinational companies together.

The workers said the gas field also paid $40.57 million annual royalty and $10.59 million in excise duty to the government, $52.3 million in sales tax and $79.08 million in income tax.