In his recent visit to China, Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement to help the cash-strapped nation develop oil and gas blocks off its coast. China will also help Pakistan strengthen its mining industry, including deep processing of ores.
The agreement to explore comes just a few months after Pakistan says it discovered gas and condensate at the Dars West Well 02 in Tando Allahyar district in Sindh province at a depth of 2,081 meters. Another gas field was discovered by Pakistan’s Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) in Khewari exploration block in the Sindh province in February this year at a depth of 3,762 meters.
Pakistan is looking for oil and gas as it has used up over 81% of all of the oil it has discovered in its territory. The remaining 233 million barrels (as of August 2023) are expected to get over within the next decade at the current rate of exploitation. A United States Agency for International Development (USAID) report claims that there are 14 billion barrels of oil available in the Indus River basin according to a report in Pakistan’s Dawn news outlet. Although, no such discovery has been made till now.
In 2019 former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that oil had been found at Kekra-1 oil well in the Indus-G block off the coast of Karachi. Pakistan later said that no such oil discovery has been made at that well. Pakistan had spent $100 million looking for oil in that region. Pakistan, like India, is an importer of energy and again, like India, produces roughly 15% of its energy from domestic crude and imports nearly 85% of its crude requirements from other nations, mostly Saudi Arabia. With its oil reserves and its foreign reserves running low Pakistan would be very lucky to strike black gold. China has loaned Pakistan nearly $65 billion for various infrastructure projects and it is likely that the dragon will make the cash-strapped nation foot the bill for the exploration exercise.
Dhruv Yadav
