ISLAMABAD, March 14: John Winterman, executive vice president of Oxy Petroleum Company USA, has said that his company intends to make a further investment of $150 million in the petroleum sector of the country.

He expressed these views during a meeting with the Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Usman Aminuddin, here on Thursday.

He also briefed the minister about the pace of work on the ongoing exploration and production activities in Pakistan being carried out by the company. He said that Oxy was looking forward to enter joint venture arrangement for possible exploration in the offshore area and expressed company‘s willingness to participate in the privatization activity in Pakistan.

Usman Aminuddin told Winterman that Pakistan was bestowed with rich hydrocarbons resources and invited the company to expand its activities in the upstream sector for which the government had already provided an attractive package of incentives under the Petroleum Policy, 2001.

The minister highlighted the government’s efforts to open the areas for exploration in Balochistan which hopefully would bring about positive change. He also said that the emphasis of the government was to exploit all available gas resources so as to substitute imported fuel oil as much as possible thus easing the burden on national economy.

By June 2003, he added, an additional gas of one billion cubic feet per day would also be available in the country from the newly discovered fields.

Usman applauded the historic contribution of Oxy Petroleum in the development of upstream sector in Pakistan during the last 20 years with investment of $800 million.

He hoped that the company would expand their participation in the exploration sector and appreciated the Oxy‘s desire to undertake exploration in the offshore sector.

Director General Petroleum Concessions G.A. Sabri, vice president Oxy Petroleum David Ryan and Resident Director of the company M.H. Rizvi were also present during the meeting.