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Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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Pakistan: Exxon Is Close To Making A Mega Oil Discovery

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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  • Mamdouh G Salameh on August 06 2018 said:
    Announcements like this normally aim at attracting foreign investments to Pakistan. The Fact that ExxonMobil is close to making a mega oil discovery means that they have not yet discovered any oil though there could be indications of the presence of oil. And if they didn’t discover the oil yet, how would they then know it is bigger than the oil reserves of Kuwait, namely 101.5 billion barrels.

    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.
  • Shazeb Ali on August 06 2018 said:
    Let us wait till its actually discovered. Best of luck with this.
  • Vishwas on August 06 2018 said:
    Poor Pakistan. The discovery coming too late. Its commercial exploration will take 18-24 months. The oil market by then may have already started crashing due to electric commercial vehicles. New investment in oil is then unlikely.
  • S Arif on August 06 2018 said:
    Indians will try to make trouble, either by instigating baloch separatists even more or exciting iran to be adventurous. However, its all hands on deck in Pakistan and Exxon Mobil and the US will protect their investment. Good luck to Pakistan, it deserves it and thank Almighty God for the blessing as it could not have come at a better time. Imran Khan is the right leader to watch over the nations wealth to be distributed evenly among all provinces equally.
  • CorvetteKid on August 06 2018 said:
    I'll believe it when I see it, given Pakistan's penchant for overexaggeration.

    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.
  • Bestwisher on August 07 2018 said:
    Good luck Pakistan, If God change your destiny and you get sincere leadership
  • Amjad khan on August 07 2018 said:
    We hope it will be discovered soon that the unstable and falling down economy will rise and Pakistan Will become high economic growth country and will people and government from all over the world will come in invest in Pakistan. Best wishes for Pakistan. Long live Pakistan.
  • Rabe on August 07 2018 said:
    @S Arif - You don't need anyone else to screw-up your projects, namely Indians - You are capable of that yourselves. Here are the examples:
    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.
  • YouKnowNothing on August 07 2018 said:
    Dear Vishwas,

    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.
  • Nasr on August 07 2018 said:
    Vishvas. Say in all visvash aren't you jealous on this news.
  • Ayaz on August 08 2018 said:
    Nodoubt Muslims are blessed with Oil...
  • Ahmed Safeer Uddin on August 08 2018 said:
    All knows that near the Iranian boder there are huge oil and gas reseves and sunce Shah Iran time Pakistan has signed the agreement that Pakistan will not explore/dig oil or gas in that area and when the final date of that agreement i don't know. After expiry date we are alowed to explore. Thats what i know but can be wrong too.
  • Aamir Mushtaq on August 08 2018 said:
    Good luck Pakistan ????????
    Hope for the best and work hard for the right.

    Live long Pakistan..
  • Bruce on August 08 2018 said:
    Congratulation Pakistan. But pls donot forget our China, we can supply full package solutions from exploration and product(E&P) and even the sale out the oil, and our China have the E&P equipements and high efficent can short your first oil time. BTW, i am working for China big SOE-China Merchants Group, we can supply the driller and FPSO and all related offshore equipement.
  • Baloch on August 08 2018 said:
    #freebalochistan
  • pro Truth on August 08 2018 said:
    good news, lets see how it unfolds. Exxon Mobil hasnt rejected this story. So how large it is based on initial tests. lets hope they hit that discovery and Pakistan can save on oil imports first.
  • Sohail Saheen on August 08 2018 said:
    Well, at least something will come out from that drilling by the Exxon Mobil.Let's wait.
  • MUNIR on August 08 2018 said:
    Now it can be possible with current elected government- As hijacked previous governments by international establishment even some discoveries like other precious metal was politicized - it’s a best chance NOW
  • CHUCK HALE on August 11 2018 said:
    Pakistan is in the middle of a very oil rich region, so its just a matter of time, Pakistan has given leases to Exxon Mobile and many others from South America, Egypt, Europe, China, etc We have tremendous potential for huge reserves, we also have gold and other exotic minerals, and Pakistan is working on a fast track to set up infrastructure....
  • Bob on August 11 2018 said:
    Well, it seems that their horizontal drilling finally reached Kuwaiti oil fields...
  • Nicman on August 11 2018 said:
    Any amount of oil helps whether its mega or giga. Dont forget UK also had north sea oil which was much talked about and what did it bring? Only lasted 20 years and now they are struggling with brexit and housing market going down because of it.
  • Imran on August 12 2018 said:
    Exxonmobile have paid for drilling license and and applied for a extra berth at port qasim. Exxcon is reason to believe by setlite photography that this area have huge oil reserve. And it is not in balochistan it is in indus river delta.
  • Mehmet on August 12 2018 said:
    @Bob Yeah it seemed that their horizontal drilling reached Kuwaiti oil fields and vertical drilling may reach US or Canada Oil Fields
  • reviews on August 12 2018 said:
    this is hoax news, but this lightens hope of beggers.
  • Ron B McCune on August 22 2018 said:
    If this oil find turns out to be true which it seems to be then this will greatly take off pressure for higher gas prices. When Venezuela gets their act together eventually and starts pumping enough oil to help the world's oil surplus and Israel and neighboring nations start taping into their newly discovered oil off their coast and then Iran"s political situation changes into a more peaceful acting nation beyond it's borders because if it doesn't it's government will eventually collapse from it's citizens frustration, then the world will have all the oil it needs for a long while. As gas vehicles get replaced by electric cars and other means of transportation the demand for oil will go down. What we ALL should be doing is to have oil and natural gas pipelines built from the Middle East and Pakistan to Europe and Asia to supply those regions of the world with natural gas and oil instead of letting Russia have these markets as they do today! WE CAN RID ourselves of the MENACE of Putin and his Russia of today which is only a rebirth of the Soviet Union! Take away the ability of Russia to make money from oil and you will see Russia go into poverty and NEVER be able to support their present military actions and weaponry and other troublesome actions of theirs! So ALL of YOU oil folks, get your act TOGETHER and INITIATE the CHECKMATE move that will SURELY END Putin and Russia's military headaches and problems that they are causing us today and FOREVER WILL unless WE stop them!!! Get with it ALL you oil people and BRING DOWN RUSSIA!!! Don't wait for these idiotic governments of ours to do it!!! YOU DO IT!!!!!! NOW!!!!
  • Ravi on August 28 2018 said:
    Not sure of the offshore part bordering Iran but there are appreciable oil and gas reserves lying in Baluchistan. Any discovery of sizable oil and gas reserves is welcome for third world. This may be one of those marketing gimmick too but let us hope that a major discovery is made.
  • saleem sulehriia on August 29 2018 said:
    Whether true or false, discovery of oil in Pakistan, has at least given people a feel good factor. Sadly, Pakistanis tend to over-exaggerate in almost everything. But, having said that, they do need a break and it's about time something positive happened. From the day QA Jinnah died Pakistan has been headed by the crooks. Let's assume, there's oil in Pakistan. Let's further assume that it was discovered during Nawaz Sharif's tenure. I bet any money you'd like, it would have ended up in Panama offshore accounts and nobody would've known anything about it.
  • SAMEER S NY on January 11 2019 said:
    I m very optimistic and filled with positive hope that pakistan is on right track with prosperity. Entire region is in uplifting economically, even India will be benefiting with this oil/Gas Mega+giga exploration. Inshallah
  • SHAMSUL SHEIKH on January 20 2019 said:
    Its Breath of fresh air That With The Changing Of Government, Hopefully Exon can give us good news.
    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
  • Asad Umar on February 03 2019 said:
    Its a very good news, no matter whats the international price of oil is at the given moment, as long as Pakistan is able to meet its domestic needs with its own oil the country will prosper like anything, its export market will increase due to lower cost of production.............
  • Sardar Ahmed Rao on March 22 2019 said:
    Bob you are simply jealous

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