Offshore drilling in Kekra-I well costs 14 billion rupees
As they say ‘the drowning man catches at a straw’, Pakistani government was desperately hoping to find oil and gas reserves through excessive offshore drilling. Something they could bank on to revive the sinking Pakistan economy. Even if they did find oil in the Arabian Sea, it could have taken some years to actually see the benefits surfacing.
Imran Khan led government has been unable to give matured and responsible statements since it came into power. Fawad Chaudhry came under heavy social media attention when he declared that Hubble Telescope was sent into space by Pakistan.
Imran Khan’s statement regarding the discovery of oil reserves can also be seen as premature. Later Nadeem Babar special assistant to Prime Minister on petroleum announced that offshore drilling in Kekra-I well has turned out to be fruitless.
According to the Prime Minister the reserves, if found, would be enough to meet the needs of the country for the next 50 years. The PM has been repeatedly saying that the nation will hear a good news in a couple of weeks. But things did not turn out as he wished.
Pervaiz Akmal former CEO OGDCL has said that it was sad to prolong the multi-million dollar exercise after numerous failures. The last attempt was the 15th offshore drilling exercise that also turned out dry. According to careful estimates around 14 billion rupees have been spent to find reserves.
We are becoming a nation who does not want to work for a living. We wish to be an oil rich country that will earn billions of dollars with minimum effort. Pakistan is primarily a rich agricultural land. We have not yet realized our full agricultural potential. Agriculture also provide the raw material for industry, we have not done that yet. Our industry is suffering. Pakistanis need to work to make things happen. It is difficult to understand why a country with so much potential and human capital is waiting to hit a jackpot which may never come.
