By Sajid Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD: Oil and Gas exploration and production company, MOL Pakistan here on Wednesday announced carrying out drilling activity in North Margalla block from first week of next year and hinted the chances of discovering oil reserves from this block.

Geophysical, GNG and seismic studies have been completed in the block and it would add to the major new activities to be carried by the company in Pakistan.

Gyorgy Mosonyi, CEO MOL group along with Janos Feher, Managing Director and CEO MOL Pakistan, informed a media briefing that supply of 250 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) gas and 4,280 barrels crude oil per day has started from the Manzalai field.

Manzalai fields are located in Tal Block in NWFP and Gyorgy Mosonyi, CEO MOL group, said that gas production from Manzalai would reach 300 MMCFD by 2013.

Addressing a press conference Mosonyi said that gas supplies from Manzalai have started to the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines limited.

He said that Pakistan was among the top five key operational centres of MOL, which is a Netherlands based Hungarian oil and gas company.

Mosonyi told media that Tal block is a joint venture of five oil and gas exploration companies.

He said that Petroleum Concession Agreement (PCA) of Tal block was signed in February 1999, as an exploration block. Prior to MOL Amoco and the OGDCL failed to make any discovery in the Tal block and they abandoned it. According to the PCA, MOL Pakistan became the operator of the block with 35 percent shares in Tal block, the other joint venture partners are OGDCL with 30 percent shares, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) with 30 percent and Government Holdings Private Limited (GHPL) with 5 percent shares.

Mr Mosonyi said that during the past 10 years MOL has invested $500 million in Tal block to make four successive discoveries.

“Our operation in Tal is one of the greatest successes of MOL in the international upstream,” he said adding that the Manzalai field has one of the largest gas reserves in Northern Pakistan that is around 1.88 Trillion Cubic Feet.

MOL is a leading international, integrated oil and gas company, its headquarter is Budapest, Hungary.

MOL owns 5 highly complex refineries in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Italy having refinery capacity of 23.5 million tons per annum and the Group operates over 1,500 filling stations in Europe and a more than 5,000 km long high pressure natural gas pipeline network in Hungary. The group is also active in petrochemical and gas storage business in Europe.

However, replying to a question the Group CEO, MOL said that they have no plans to enter the mid-stream or down-stream sectors in Pakistan.

“But we will continue to expand the exploration activities in the country,” Mr Mosonyi said. Meanwhile, Janos Feher, managing director MOL Pakistan, who is also the chairman Pakistan Exploration and Production Companies Association, expressed satisfaction over the Petroleum policy 2009.

“The policy offers higher incentives for the oil and gas companies and more allocations would be made for the development of local area where activities are conducted,” Feher said. “We expect that major international exploration companies would enter Pakistani market by the mid of 2010,” he added.

He also said that negative perception is a major issue for Pakistan and expressed confidence that this would subside in next six months.

However, he acknowledged that the petroleum policy 2009 lack mechanism to resolve dispute between the exploration company and the Ministry of Petroleum.

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