ExxonMobil is close to discovering huge oil reserves in Pakistan near the border with Iran, and those reserves could even be larger than the oil reserves of Kuwait, the Pakistani Minister for Maritime Affairs and Foreign Affairs, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, said over the weekend.
Addressing business leaders at the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Haroon said that Exxon had drilled for oil close to the Iranian border and that the U.S. supermajor was optimistic about the oil find.
"Foreign investors are interested in coming to Pakistan, provided we manage to meet their standards and attract them to make investment," the Pakistani minister said in a press release published by the FPCCI.
According to Arab News, if the oil discovery in Pakistan turns out to be as large as expected, the country would rank among the world's top ten oil producing countries, ahead of Kuwait.
Kuwait's total proved oil reserves were 101.5 billion barrels at the end of 2017, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. The Kuwaiti reserves account for 6 percent of the world's total proved oil reserves, putting Kuwait among the top ten countries in terms of largest oil reserves per country after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, and Russia.
In Pakistan, ExxonMobil signed an agreement in May this year to take a 25-percent working interest in the Indus Block G offshore Pakistan, where the other partners in the block are Italy's major Eni and Pakistan's Government Holdings Pvt Ltd and Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL).
According to Arab News, Pakistan currently meets just 15 percent of its petroleum demand with domestic crude oil production, while 85 percent of its demand is met with imports. With the high imports, and the higher oil prices in recent months, Pakistan faces a large current account deficit and spends a substantial portion of its foreign exchange reserves on importing oil.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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Comments
This announcement reminds me of one made in April 4, 2018 by Bahrain’s oil minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa who said at a press conference that Bahrain has discovered oil and gas reserves estimated at more than 80 billion barrels of oil and between 10 trillion and 20 trillion cubic feet of gas. He also said that International oil companies are currently helping Bahrain to carry out appraisal studies at the new discovery and to quantify how much of the oil and gas in place can be extracted. If that is the case, how did he then come up with the estimated figures of the oil and gas reserves without appraisal studies done first.
Since then, we never heard a word about the Bahrain discoveries. This could prove to be the same case with Pakistan.
Even if true, you are probably looking at 5-10 years before 1st oil. And that's not assuming delays, cost overruns, and domestic Pakistani issues.
1) Like the worlds largest gold, copper, plutonium reserves that never came into being.
2) Another one copper reserves with over exaggerated potential - never happened, then came LNG which never happened to materialize.
3) The largest reserves of coal turned out to be mostly un-mine-able and little that could be mined was third grade lignite with high moisture content.
Same here with the oil reserves. pakistani's have habit of over exaggeration and most of the projects die natural death with nothing actually happening on ground and in some cases attracting international fines of millions of dollars due to corruption.
I can't believe but to say this by reading you comment, you look like high school dropout. "The oil market by then may have already started crashing due to electric commercial vehicles" if you have studied chemistry, 'when oil is refine it give 500 product, which one include vehicles fuel'. If vehicles fuel are no longer required but remaining 499 product are. So before you bash other country natural resource do study first about that mineral then come all out else stay out of it and leave it to the mature one's.
Hope for the best and work hard for the right.
Live long Pakistan..
Living abroad for past Sixty years its about Time that we are due for good news and the mafia in pakistan put to rest ,Allah Is Great And Thanks Imran God Bless u