The Nation's accusations go up in smoke

The Nation blames a ‘failure of governance’ for reports that the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) will not meet its yearly target for oil and gas extraction, despite the fact that the government has actually made improvements to the oversight of the OGDCL only a few weeks ago. These facts, presumably, do not fit The Nation’s predetermined political goal of criticizing the government, though, so were conveniently left out of their editorial.

The Nation did not mention that only a few weeks ago, the government removed five OGDCL directors after learning of a conflict-of-interest.

The government has removed, with immediate effect, five members of the board of directors of OGDCL, the country’s largest oil and gas producer.

The action was taken amid a conflict of interest pointed out by intelligence agencies in the restructuring of the Pakistan State Oil board.

A notification issued by the petroleum ministry did not give any reason for the removal of directors of OGDCL. Those who have been removed include Tariq Iqbal Khan (chairman of NIT), Waqar Malik (chief executive of ICI Pakistan), Rafiq Dawood (head of Dawood Islamic Bank), Sikandar Muhammad Khan (head of the Sugar Mills Association) and Sikandar Hayat Jamali.

The newly-appointed directors are: Senator Mohammad Ismail Buledi from Balochistan, chief secretary of Balochistan Nasir Mehmood Khosa by designation, Kaiser Bengali (renowned economist) and comparatively unknown Fahad Sheikh and Syed Masieh-ul-Islam.

A premier intelligence agency had complained to the prime minister that most of the recently-appointed directors of the PSO board were close friends of people in the PSO management and had conflict of interest with the company.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat told Dawn that the agency had also raised questions about over Rs6.5 billion inventory losses faced by PSO.

Additionally, there have actually been some improvements in the energy sector in recent months, though a reader would not know this from reading The Nation’s editorial.

Dawn reported on 12 November that the Pak-Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO) is a 5-billion-dollar oil joint project between Pakistan and UAE.

Millions of dollars has also been dedicated to increased oil and gas exploration on two blocks granted by the federal government.

The Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) on Thursday intended to invest over $17.05 million on the development of its two oil and gas exploration blocks granted by the federal government.

The PPL has been awarded licences to carryout exploration and production of oil and gas on the two blocks –Jungshahi and Gambat South – in Zone-III comprising area of 2,459 and 2,436 square kilometers, respectively.

The development work of the phase-I is estimated to span over three years in order to discharge its minimum work commitment of 1,705 work units through acquisition, processing and interpretation of 2D/3D seismic and drilling of exploration wells.

PPL is Pakistan’s oldest and largest Exploration and Production (E&P) company and operates five fields including Sui, Kandhkot, Mazarani, Adhi and Chachar with the overall daily production of 786 MMCF of gas, 4,989 barrels of oil and 150 metric tonnes of LPG.

Presently, the company is working in seven different exploration blocks namely Nushki, Dhadar, Khuzdar, Hala Kalat, Bahawalpur East and Barkhan as an operator having working interests in 15 other exploration blocks operated by various E&P companies.

Recently, the E&P company has made a gas/condensate discovery over Adam X-1 exploratory well in its Hala exploration block, which is being appraised by them through EWT operations.

The licences and the Petroleum Concession Agreements were signed by, Petroleum and Natural Resources Secretary Mehmood Salim Mehmood on behalf of the president of Pakistan, General Petroleum Concessions Director Mohammad Naeem Malik, PPL Managing Director Khalid Rahman. The execution ceremony was graced by Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar with his presence.

The OGDCL may have problems, but that’s not to say that these are the fault of the government, or that the government is not doing anything to improve the OGDCL and the energy sector entirely.

In fact, the energy sector in Pakistan has been making some recent improvements, including the government removing members of the OGDCL board for conflict-of-interest. Blaming the government for corruption at OGDCL just weeks after the government takes a major step towards eliminating corruption at the OGDCL and while millions of dollars in new exploration and refinery is being invested is disappointing. The Nation’s editorial staff appears to be either unaware or unconcerned with the topics they are writing about, which does a disservice to their readers.