Oil and gas production up by eight percent

Karachi: The oil and gas production of the country showed a healthy growth of 8 percent on year-on-year basis to reach 7,34,000 bpd (barrel oil equivalent per day) during July 2007 as compared to 6,79,000 boepd in July 2006 and by 4.2 percent over June 2007.

The three major listed companies gained market share and contributed 54 percent to the total production in this period compared to 51 percent during the same period last year. As many as 12 percent growth was witnessed in oil to 73,476 bpd in July 2007 against 65,510 bpd in the same period last year, while gas production surged by 8 percent to 3,892 mmcfd against 3,614 mmcfd and the production of LPG increased by 9 percent to 1,593tpd in this period against 1,461tpd in the same period last year.

The oil production increased on the back of rise in production from fields namely Bobi, Chanda, Dhakni, Makori and Kunnar; as well as inclusion of production from the fields not producing last July namely Mela and Pasakhi North, Ambereen Jiwani of Invest Capital & Securities Limited said.

She said that the increase in gas production could be attributed to increase in production from Qadirpur, Mela and Dakhni. However, a low-base effect is also apparent as production from Uch was stopped due to a maintenance shutdown during July 06. The total oil and gas production of OGDC grew by 29 percent to 215,347 bpd in July 2007 against 167,391 boepd in the same month in 2006. The company's oil production grew by 15 percent to 45,643 bpd in this month against 39,590 bpd in the same month last year, gas production grew by 33 percent to 1,000 mmcfd against 752 mmcfd while LPG production grew by 23pc.