ISLAMABAD: With the country’s oil production reaching its new peak, the government has ordered a wide-ranging investigation into increasing theft of crude oil in two major oil-producing provinces.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh have been asked by the federal government to probe into cases of crude oil theft that were not only extremely dangerous but environmentally hazardous.

Crude oil and condensate are usually transported through high-pressure pipelines from wells to refineries.

The probe was ordered when United Energy Pakistan (UEP), a Hong Kong-based exploration and production company operating here, wrote to the federal and provincial governments that it was shutting down flow lines and associated wells to avert risk from the installation of theft clamps. The company said the working of its staff at Mirpurkhas and Khipro blocks was becoming increasingly difficult.

Official sources told Dawn that Pakistan’s oil production hit its highest level of 100,600 barrels per day (bpd) on Dec 7 this year, up from about 80,000 bpd last year as output from various fields has improved and new wells have come into production.

The rising theft cases are alarming as they are not only causing substantial financial loss to producers, but also represent safety and environmental hazards, a senior official said.

He said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources had written a letter to Sindh’s chief minister to investigate formal complaints lodged by the United Energy Pakistan.

The petroleum ministry had also taken up the issue of crude oil/condensate theft with the KP government after two separate cases were reported this month to the federal government and taken up by the provincial assembly, he said.

Informed sources said UEP President Tariq Khamisani reported this week in writing the repeated cases of theft from pipelines originating from wells in Mirpurkhas and Khipro blocks in Sindh. He also reported similar cases last month.

In his latest communication to the ministries of interior and petroleum and the sindh government, Mr Khamisani said this week his company had “discovered additional pilferage clamps on the same flow lines mentioned earlier…pilferage clamp installation is an extremely hazardous activity as this could lead to catastrophic disaster resulting in uncontrollable fire and fatalities of our staff and the community members”.

The federal government official said the crude/condensate theft could have multi-faceted risk because the pipelines carried all extractions from the wells including gas, LPG and crude. “This is very strange and maximum we could do at present is to probe it.”

He said there had been cases of gas theft from distribution pipelines in the past but “this is for the first time that condensate theft cases from main lines have come to light”.

The officials said that similar incidents in KP were reported, leading to sacking of about 30 employees by Oil and Gas Development Company Limited from Nashpa-Kohat and a joint investigation ordered by the provincial police chief into theft of crude from the pipeline of MOL-Pakistan, a Hungarian firm.

Published in Dawn December 13th , 2014