ISLAMABAD, March 19: The ministry of petroleum on Wednesday announced a new discovery of 2,881 barrels oil and 45.8mmcf gas in Mami Khel-1 well -- Tal Block in the NWFP.

Hydrocarbon exploration has been carried out in this block since 1999 by a consortium of companies including Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDCL), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (PPL) and Government Holdings (Pvt) Ltd (GHPL) with MOL Pakistan as an operator of this joint venture. MOL has a 10 per cent interest in the consortium.

An official announcement issued here said the pre-discovery working interest of the JVPs is MOL (10 per cent), OGDCL (30 per cent), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (30 per cent), POL (25 per cent) and GHPL (5 per cent).

Following the completion of seismic acquisition and its interpretation resulting in an attractive geological prospect, the joint venture resolved to drill an exploratory well, Mami Khel-1, in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The well was successfully drilled down to planned TD, based on the drilling, open-hole logs MDT & DST results, hydrocarbon bearing formation Lockhart Limestone was tested in the depth range of 2878-2930 m. The well flowed 45.8mmcfd of gas and 2,881 stock tank barrels per day (STB/day) of condensate at 56/64 choke at 3239 psig flowing wellhead pressure.

As a result of testing operations carried out so far at Mamikhel-1 well, the presence of significant quantities of oil and gas has been established in Lockhart formation. This is third discovery of the consortium in Tal Block.

Following this discovery, the joint venture will be conducting further appraisal through extended well testing (EWT) to evaluate the optimum producing rate, scale and economic viability of the reserves.