Islamabad: Amid renewed efforts to open up security-hit areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal region for petroleum exploration, the ministry of petroleum and natural resources told a parliamentary panel on Thursday that it had not moved any summary for increase in consumer-end natural gas tariff.
Testifying before the National Assembly’s standing committee on petroleum and natural resources, Petroleum Secretary Arshad Mirza said the decision regarding gas prices was required to be made through consultations among various government departments.
These departments included the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and the ministry of finance, he said, adding that the summary seeking gas price adjustment should go to the prime minister through the ministry. “I am required to sign the summary and I have not yet seen, signed or forwarded the summary about gas prices,” he told the meeting of the standing committee on petroleum led by Bilal Ahmed Virk.
The government has frozen consumer-end gas prices for more than two years now because of the inability of the ministries concerned, particularly the ministries of finance and petroleum, to convince the prime minister why gas rates be increased when oil prices were going down with which local gas prices are pegged.
This is despite repeated undertakings given by the finance ministry to the International Monetary Fund to increase gas tariff and determinations issued by Ogra for higher revenue requirements of the two gas utilities.
The committee was informed by Minister for Housing and Works Akram Khan Durrani of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Mehtab Khan, corps commander of Peshawar, frontier regions’ secretary and KP’s chief secretary would hold a meeting within a week to finalise a security plan required to facilitate entry of oil and gas exploration companies to start their operations in areas adjacent to Kohat, Hangu, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
Mr Durrani, who served as KP’s chief minister during the Musharraf regime, said he could personally guarantee security of federal bureaucracy and ministers to go up to North Waziristan to see the situation on ground. He said the government functionaries should not play up security situation based on minor incidents to discourage oil companies. “Such incidents could happen in Islamabad and anywhere else in the world and hence we should stop this drama of security concerns,” he said.
He lamented that OGDCL had around 32 drilling rigs but only two had been deployed in KP despite a much higher success rate of petroleum discoveries in the area. The Director General of Petroleum Concessions, Saeedullah Shah, confirmed that except for Sindh, success rate in the KP was higher than other provinces.
Mr Shah said the country had increased gas production by around 500 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) in two years but almost the same quantity was lost because of depleting fields.
The committee directed the ministry of petroleum to ensure that oil and gas exploration firms preferred hiring local people before starting their projects instead of brining people from outside which created a sense of deprivation among locals.
The committee took strong exception to misreporting by a leading exploration firm before a sub-committee of the National Assembly and decided to summon highest representatives of MOL of Hungary to explain its position.
The committee directed that employees of Dakhni oil and gas field who had been fired without any rhyme or reason be reinstated immediately as they were more experienced having worked for 7-8 years but replaced with fresh outsiders only to get rid of their labour rights.
The committee directed its two sub-committees on utilisation of production bonus, royalty and community development funds of oil and gas companies in all the four provinces to complete their work by Sept 23. It also directed the petroleum ministry to ensure that agencies and companies concerned provided authentic and accurate information to the two sub-committees.
