South Asia Investor Review

Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently raised Pakistanis' hopes of ExxonMobil and ENI being on the verge of a massive discovery of offshore oil and gas reserves in Pakistan. Is this real? Or mostly hype? What is the size of these reserves? Will it be more than sufficient to meet Pakistan's current needs of over  200 million barrels  of oil per year? Will Pakistan become a net exporter of oil and gas like major OPEC nations? Top 3 Offshore Drilling Sites in Asia-Pacific. Source: Bloomberg Why is it taking so long to get confirmation from the companies involved? What are the technical issues in getting confirmation of these huge reserves? Why is there such a big concern about blow-out? Is it because the  1.5 billion barrels  pre-drill estimate of Kekra-1 well in block G of the Indus basin off the Karachi coast? Could such a large reserve cause a major blow-out accident like the one British Petroleum had in Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana in the United States? How...

Blowout concerns have stopped offshore drilling in Pakistan yet again. It was underway to confirm discovery of oil and gas in at Kekra-1 well in G-bloc with pre-drill estimate of over  1.5 billion barrels  of oil. It was scheduled to restart on April 20, 2019 after pause of 12 days, according to Pakistani media reports. Now it is delayed until the blowout preventer equipment is fixed and ready to use again. Offshore Blowout Preventer Stack. Courtesy: British Petroleum Blowout Preventer Problem:  The drilling was stopped on April 8 at the depth of 4,810 meters for cementing and casing process which took almost 12 days to complete. Now there are concerns about the proper functioning of the blowout preventer (BOP). Once the BOP repair is completed,  Mobile Exxon and ENI  as joint operators at Kekra-1 well will resume drilling of the remaining 650-800 meters. Time required to drill the remaining 650-800 meters will depend on the rate of penetration (RoP)....