Omar Ayub urges investors to take benefit from investment opportunities
Last updated on: 02 September,2019 01:10 pm
He said we were striving to stabilise the price and supply of the LPG.
(Web Desk) – Minister for Power and Petroleum Omar Ayub Khan on Monday urged local and foreign investors to take benefit from investment opportunities in the energy sector of Pakistan, particularly the oil and gas sector.
He addressed the Oil and Gas Conference organised by Petroleum Institute of Pakistan in Islamabad.
Ayub said the incumbent government has taken measures to ensure ease of doing business in the country and reduced red tapism to facilitate the investors. He said the variables of growth and better returns were available in the sector.
The minister said there was an investment potential of $40 billion in power generation and $20 billion in each of transmission and distribution sectors.
He said policies were also being framed to reinvigorate and give impetus to the energy sector. The draft of renewable energy has been presented to Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said this policy targets increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to 20 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030. He said the renewable energy was getting cheaper with technological development. Therefore, the government wanted to increase its share in the overall energy production to reduce burden on the consumers.
Ayub noted that energy was a major driver of economic growth and cheaper electricity would give impetus to the economic growth. He said dependency on imported fuel must also decrease.
In his remarks on the occasion, Special Assistant to the PM on Petroleum Nadeem Babar said the present government has been striving to fix the longstanding issues of oil and gas sector to change the direction of the economy. He said we were cutting down regulations and approvals to facilitate the investors. He stressed the country’s refineries need to upgrade their refining facilities.
The special assistant said the government was encouraging the private sector to establish the LNG terminals without any financial commitments.
He said we were striving to stabilise the price and supply of the LPG. “We want to provide clean and safe fuel to the people who have no access to piped gas.”