ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: The government is making concerted efforts to promote investment in oil exploration and production by offering safe and secure environment for investors to earn reasonable returns.

This was stated by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Usman Aminuddin while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a two-day annual technical conference of petroleum engineers and petroleum geo-scientists, organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and Pakistan Association of Petroleum Geo- scientists here on Wednesday.

The minister said that success in hydrocarbon exploration and production would act as springboard to stimulate national industrial development by guaranteeing ready access to reliable and reasonably priced sources of indigenous energy.

He called upon the engineers and geo-scientists to equip themselves with the latest technology and skills with a view to achieving high success ratio in the exploration and production.

The minister said oil and gas sector was one of the priority areas being promoted by the government in its drive to revitalize the economy of the country. To stimulate upstream activity, the government had already announced new offshore and onshore policies, which would bring new investment in the oil and gas sector.

Highlighting the salient features of the dynamic initiatives taken by the government, he said, a new gas pricing policy to offer safeguard against fluctuating international oil price movements to both, the seller and the buyer of gas, had been adopted. The government will shortly replace the Natural Gas Regulatory Authority with Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA).

Inter-fuel substitution policies of the government for promoting use of natural to replace liquid fuels will help convince investors that hydrocarbons found in Pakistan can be readily commercialized, returning profits to stakeholders in attractive payback times, he said.

Usman said that all of these initiatives and many others would expedite deregulation process in the upstream oil and gas business thus stimulating the economy as had already been the result of the deregulation in the downstream, refining and marketing business.

The minister further said that since the discovery of Sui fields in 1952 the exploration and production business had been a vital component of the economy of Pakistan. But, he said, the success of ventures had never been more important than it was today.

Imports of oil are today costing the country $3 billion per year in valuable foreign exchange. This imported oil together with indigenous production of oil and gas is used to generate energy and provide better fuels, which are essential to the country’s growing economy, he said.

He expressed the hope that the conference would provide the opportunity to the participants to share each other‘s experiences and skills to make rapid breakthrough in the oil and gas exploration activities.

President of SPE and managing director, LASMO Oil Pakistan Limited, Neil Booth explained the objective of the conference.

“We must find ways to locate and develop those extra reserves, increase production levels, improve economics through attaining innovative technologies to meet the challenges of the days ahead,” Mr Neil said.