KARACHI: Pakistan’s Mari Petroleum Company on Monday announced it had discovered around 17 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of gas from a well in the southern Sindh province, as the exploration giant joins the “billion-dollar club” of companies at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).
According to data from the Pakistan Petroleum Information Services, Pakistan’s leftover oil and gas reserves will be fully consumed in the next 15 years. Currently, the South Asian nation of 240 million people relies on imports to meet its growing demand and faces regular scheduled gas outages, also known as load shedding.
In a stock filing on Monday, Mari said drilling of a third horizontal well had been carried out in the Habib Rahi Limestone (HRL) Reservoir of the Mari Gas Field in Daharki in Sindh province. The well is part of the Mari Field Revitalization Project “aimed at better managing the delivery pressure, sustaining the gas production, and optimal reserves recovery, all leading to the arrest of the depletion in production.”
“The well was drilled to a total measured depth of 1,740 meters with a horizontal section length of around 750 meters,” the stock filing said.
“After completion, the well was tested at a rate of around 17 million standard cubic feet per day of gas at a flowing wellhead pressure of 470 pounds per square inch gauge (psig).”
The well will be put on regular production immediately after releasing the drilling rig, Mari said, adding that it was evaluating opportunities to drill additional horizontal wells.
In October this year, Mari announced a discovery of around 8 mmscfd gas from another well in Daharki, which is being supplied to the Sui Norther Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).
The company said the new supply of gas would contribute in reducing the energy demand-supply gap in the country this winter season, and help save foreign exchange through indigenous hydrocarbon production.
The field supplies gas to various sectors, including power, fertilizer, industry, and domestic consumers.
With the latest discoveries of gas, Pakistan’s self-sufficiency in gas increased from 71.3 percent to 76.26 percent during the November 24-30 period. The average per day consumption of Pakistan remains 4,100 mmscfd while production has increased from 2,923 mmcfd to 31,27 mmcfd, according to the data released by Petroleum Club of Pakistan on Monday.
In a separate development, Mari has joined the “billion-dollar club” at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) by achieving market capitalization of $1 billion.
There are now seven listed companies in Pakistan with a market value of over a billion dollars, namely the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited, Colgate, Nestle, Meezan, Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Pak Tobacco, and Mari Petroleum, according to Topline Securities research.
There were only two listed companies, OGDCL and Nestle, in Pakistan five months ago.
The market cap of the listed companies has increased amid a historical growth and bullish trend prevailing at the Pakistan Stock Exchange, with the benchmark KSE100 index closing at 66,012 points on Monday.
Shares prices of Mari increased by 4.9 percent to Rs2,168.82 on the back of gas discovery announcements on Monday.
