ISLAMABAD: Offshore drilling near Karachi coast on Indus G-Block (Kekra-1)has finally been completed after four months of hard work. The drilling wasdone through a joint venture (JV) of four companies.
Sources in the Petroleum Division informed Pakistan Today that the JVcompleted the offshore drilling on Kekra-1 well some 280 kilometres awayfrom Karachi. The planned depth of 5,470 kilometres was achieved at a costof Rs14 billion while the drill stem test (DST) was being conducted todetermine the actual reserves of oil and gas, they added.
“DST would be completed in the next three days and a report regarding thetotal quantity of oil and gas reserves would be prepared within a week,”sources informed.
They said the availability of around nine trillion cubic feet of gas with alarge quantity of oil was initially estimated in the Kekra-1 well.
A group of multinational companies, including ENI, Exxon Mobil, Oil and GasDevelopment Company Limited (OGDCL) and Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL),in a joint venture, had started offshore drilling on 11th January 2019. Thedrilling was expected to be completed in March 2019 as per initialestimation. ENI ensured the completion of offshore drilling despitecritical situations faced during the drilling process.
Sources informed this scribe that due to the critical situations faced inthe Kekra-1 well, the drilling team had to spend an additional $100 millionin order to procure surplus steel and cement etc., as it had to drill theKekra-1 well in another direction.
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“This was a challenging task because the time to complete the drillingprocess was very limited, as the sea waves usually become unfriendly by theend of May,” sources said. “The stability of a drilling ship by the end ofMay would have been next to impossible.”
Sources said that the determination of the actual quantity of the totalreserves would be made during the next ten days. “After getting samplesfrom the said offshore site, the process of testing and analyzing would becommenced.”
A senior official at the Petroleum Division said that necessaryinfrastructure in the sea would be deployed for oil and gas exploration ifthe price of total reservoir quantity was more than $10 billion. If thereservoir quantity was in line with the estimates, Pakistan’s import billcould be decreased by $6 billion annually, the official added.
