KARACHI: Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL) told its shareholders on Tuesday that MOL Pakistan, which operates the Tal Block in Kohat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has encountered hydrocarbons in the development well of Tolanj West-02, which has been drilled and is currently under the testing phase.

In a regulatory filing, the oil and gas explorer that’s part of the consortium extracting energy from Tal Block said the operator has conducted a drill stem test (DST) at the well for isolating and testing the surrounding geological formations.

“As a result of DST… the well has tested 12.7 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, 11.3 barrels per day of condensate and 9.2 barrels per day of water,” it said, adding that the production from the well is expected to start in December. The working interest of POL is 25 per cent.

The share price of POL rose 0.33pc to Rs421.79 apiece on Tuesday.

Oil production declined 3pc year-on-year in 2021-22 to 73,420 barrels per day. Lower production from Nashpa, Adhi and Makori East oil fields besides no addition of any sizable oil field led to the annual decline in oil production, according to data compiled by Topline Securities.

Similarly, gas production went down 2pc year-on-year to 3.38 billion cubic feet per day, which was largely in line with the five-year average production decline.

Despite a flurry of discoveries in recent months, the country’s oil and gas production has been in consistent decline for many years. Crude production went down 4pc annually between 2014-15 and 2019-20. The average annual decline in gas production was 2.2pc over the same period, the latest Energy Year Book published by the Ministry of Energy shows.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2022