Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has invited China's Orient Group to assist Pakistan in drilling for oil and gas, and reactivating depleted and abandoned fields across the country amid an acute energy shortage, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported Friday.
Speaking to a delegation headed by Zhang Hongwei, chairman of Orient Group, Zardari said Friday that Pakistan is in an "energy emergency," according to the report.
In an Express Tribune report June 18, Zhang expressed interest in conducting feasibility studies on laying oil and gas pipelines from the Gwadar Port to China, following a request from Pakistan's Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Asim Hussain.
Zhang added that the group was investing more into the recently acquired BP projects in Pakistan to increase the output of oil products.
In December 2010, Hong Kong-listed United Energy bought BP's Pakistan upstream assets for $775 million. The assets consisted of nine producing and exploration blocks in Sindh province and four offshore exploration blocks in the Arabian Sea with proved attributable reserves of 43.1 million barrels of oil equivalent. At the time of acquisition, the assets were producing a net of about 35,000 b/d of oil, with gross oil production at 10,000 b/d and gas production at about 200,000 Mcf/d.
Zhang is also chairman of United Energy.
Electricity, gas and fuel shortages in Pakistan over the past three years have crippled industrial and manufacturing activity all over the country. Pakistan's annual demand for oil products is about 20 million mt (400,000 b/d), of which only 13% is met through local resources. The country faces a gas shortfall of about 1 Bcf/d, with consumption at around 5.2 Bcf/d and production at 4.2 Bcf/d.
Addressing the media after the president's meeting Friday, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said that to overcome the energy crisis, the president was focusing on tapping all available resources, including reactivating the abandoned and depleted oil and gas fields to meet domestic requirements, according to the APP report.
In Sindh alone, 16 gas fields abandoned by the OGDC were identified as depleted, and the president had called for reactivation of all such resources using the new technology, Babar was quoted as saying.
