ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas Development Company claimed on Wednesday to have discovered a large reserve of crude oil in Sindh.

According to an announcement made by the company, 1,095 barrels of crude oil per day will be obtained from a well in Tando Allahyar.

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OGDC Managing Director Mohammad Rafi said at a press conference that the company would start getting oil from the well, at a cost Rs700 million, after a month. He said the well also had shale gas.

Mr Rafi said the company had drawn gas from Sorgi well and supplied 17m cubic feet to Dakhni plant. “This gas will be included in the system after treatment,” he said.

An OGDC spokesman told Dawn that the discovery would add significantly to the country’s oil reserves.

He said it was a significant discovery because it had taken place in Sindh. “Usually such big discoveries are made in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Punjab, but these are quite rare in Sindh.”

Of about 80,000 barrels of per day indigenous oil production, the OGDC is producing 46,000 barrels daily.

“We have set a target of 50,000 barrels crude oil per day to achieve by June 30,” the spokesman said.

He said the drilling cost in Pakistan was much higher than in other oil producing countries. “For this discovery the well called Poly Deep-1 was dug more than 4,000 metres, while in Saudi Arabia crude oil is found at 400 to 500 metres.”

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2015

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