ISLAMABAD: Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (MPCL) on Friday announced a new hydrocarbon discovery in Sindh.

The company is the operator and 100pc working interest owner of Mari Development & Production Lease (D&PL). In a statement, it said to have hit a gas discovery from exploratory effort at Iqbal-1, drilled in Mari D&P Lease Area, located in District Ghotki, Sindh.

The well was spud-in on July 11 and successfully drilled down to the depth of 1,250 meters into Sui Main Limestone formation. It was tested at the rate of 3.127 million standard cubic feet per day gas, 79 barrels per day of water through choke size 40/64” at Well Head Flowing Pressure of 396 Pounds per Square Inch from Sui Upper Limestone and Ghazij Formation.

The discovery of Iqbal Well-1 is the sixth consecutive discovery in Mari D&P area. Furthermore, Ghazij Formation has been tested for the first time in Mari Lease area and would add to the hydrocarbon reserves base of the MPCL, the statement added.

Lotte profits plunge

Lotte Chemical Pakistan posted 2QCY20 profit after tax (PAT) of Rs55 million which converted to earnings per share at Rs0.04.

This represented a plunge of 97pc over PAT at Rs1,174m the same quarter of 2019 (EPS: Rs1.17).

On a quarterly basis, earnings went down by 5pc which took the 1HCY20 net income to Rs113m (EPS: Rs0.07) against PAT at Rs3,050m (EPS: Rs2.01) in same period last year.

AOB removes firm over violations

The Audit Oversight Board (AOB) has removed Qadeer & Company Chartered Accountants from its register of auditors of public interest companies.

The firm had committed multiple violations of the law including failure to rotate audit partner as required by the code of ethics, failure to disclose the partner to AOB as well as concealment of some audit engagements in the quality control review.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2020