Offshore drilling start in Karachi to locate hydrocarbons

Offshore drilling commence in Karachi subsequent to a gap of nine years tried to locate hydrocarbons from deep waters in Pakistan with an assessment of massive oil and gas deposits in extreme deep waters at an estimated cost of over $100 million.

Offshore drilling start in Karachi to locate hydrocarbons

The combined endeavor comprising Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), ENI Pakistan Limited and ExxonMobil, planned drilling of the well Kekra-1 in offshore Indus G-Block.

One of the world’s prevalent oil and gas firms the US firm ExxonMobil, in collaboration with Italian firm Eni Pakistan Limited, and is drilling in deep waters about 280 kilometers away from Karachi coast. Eni Pakistan Limited has anticipated nine trillion cubic feet gas deposits, adding ExxonMobil expects oil deposits there.

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They are drilling Kekra-1 well in Indus-G block, which is positioned several 280 kilometers away from the coast. They would drill around 5,800 meters deep from the sea level and are targeting to complete the cycle in the next 60 days.

Pakistan meets around 15-20 percent of its energy needs all the way through local oil and gas exploration and production, whereas the rest is met from side to side expensive imports.

The oil and gas imports cost Pakistan around one-fourth of the total import bills per year. The country comes up as one of the largest gas (liquefied natural gas) importers in the last couple of years at the global level.

Pakistan will be among top the 10 oil-producing countries ahead of Kuwait in the sixth position if the oil deposits are exposed as predictable.