HYDERABAD, Feb 28: The province of Sindh produces 56 per cent oil and gas of the country from its more than 120 oil and gas fields. This was stated at a conference on "Fossil fuels and mineral resources of Sindh".

The conference was organized by the department of geology, University of Sindh, at its Jamshoro campus on Monday.

Speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of the two-day national conference, the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman, said that during the next five to seven years a large number of students up to 15,000 to 20,000 would be sent aboard for higher education.

He said the HEC had already allocated funds to the tune of Rs3.5 billion for the University of Sindh to give scholarships to its faculty for PhD from abroad. He congratulated that the University of Sindh for organizing such an important conference and hoped that deliberations of the conference would help discover more oil, gas, coal and other mineral resources in Sindh and the country.

He announced that the Higher Education Commission would provide funds for establishment of "National Centre of Excellence for Fossil fuels" and appointed a committee. He advised the committee to submit PC-I within four weeks for further progress.

Vice-chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui said that this was the first ever national conference on fossil fuel and mineral resources organized by the University of Sindh in the history of the country. He said that it was a part of academic processes as well a time-honoured mode of dissemination of knowledge, particularly at the higher level.

He said that with daily requirement of nearly 300,000 barrels per day and ever-increasing prices of crude in the international market all out efforts were needed to cut down the import bill.

He pointed out that the geology department of the university deserved to be raised to the level of the institute of geology. He said the institute should offer degrees in market-oriented disciplines such as industrial mineralogy, engineering geology, hydrogeology and sedimentology.

He demanded from the chairman of the Higher Education Commission to provide funding for adding these sections. Funds should cover trainings of faculty and establishment of laboratories, he said.

In his key note speech on "Energy scenario of Pakistan: The role of fossil fuels", Mr Hilal Raza, the director-general and the chief executive officer of the Hydrocarbon Development Institute, stressed the need for more discoveries of oil, gas and coal.

He said Sindh was major players in gas and coal production and added that there was need to exploit more reserves. He said in future the need for oil, gas and coal would increase therefore more attention should be paid to new discoveries.

He said in the foreseeable future, fossil fuels would play leading role in meeting energy needs of the world. He said the geoscientists should turn fossil fuel resources into reserves using the latest know how.

The dean of the faculty of natural sciences, Prof Asif Ali Qazi, said fossil fuels were being consumed at much faster rates then they were produced in the earth's crust and feared that humankind would eventually deplete those non-renewable resources.

The secretary of the organizing committee and head of geology department, Prof (Dr) Parveen Usmani, said Sindh was rich in fossil fuels and more then 120 oil and gas fields were found in Sindh which produces 56 per cent oil and gas for the country. She said about 26 economic minerals were found in Sindh and it had earned Rs263 million during 2004 sharing major portion of the economy of the province.