Good news regarding oil discovery expected soon: minister
A pressure signal was received at the depth of 5474 meters during drilling: Ali Zaidi
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs, Ali Zaidi said that drilling process for the discovery of oil and gas is in final stage and the results would be clear after a few days.
Zaidi said the drilling process is not completed yet but a pressure signal was received at the depth of 5474 meters during drilling.He said the drilling would continue till the depth of 5000 meters.
The minister said the pressure was released at various locations during drilling process which is a good news and they have installed blowout pre vendor cap at the locations of pressure signals.
He said the drilling has been started again after testing the pressure and the true estimate about oil discovery will be found after drilling till the depth of 5500 meters.
Ali Zaidi said the drilling was done excellently and the process was completed in 120 days instead of proposed 60 days. He said final results of oil discovery would be revealed soon asking nation to pray for oil and gas discovery.
Earlier, it surfaced on media that offshore drilling near Karachi coast on Indus G-Block (Kekra-1) has been completed after four months of hard work.
The process spudded the Kekra-1 well to the depth of 5,470 m at a cost of Rs14 billion.
Currently, ExxonMobil, ENI, Oil and Gas Development Company, and Pakistan Petroleum Limited are conducting the drill stem test (DST) to determine the real size of the oil and gas reserves in the Kekra-1 well, located around 280 km away from Karachi.
The DST is expected to be completed within next 48 to 72 hours, and if found, a report regarding the total quantity of oil and gas reserves would be prepared within a week.
The required infrastructure would be built and deployed in the sea after analysing the reserves of oil and gas. Pakistan’s import bill could be decreased by billions of dollars annually, if the total reservoir quantity is huge.
The group of multinational companies had begun offshore drilling on 11th January 2019. The drilling was expected to be completed in March 2019 as per initial estimation. ENI ensured the completion of offshore drilling despite critical situations faced during the drilling process.
According to sources, the drilling was a challenging task as the joint venture was running out of time to complete the drilling process as sea waves generally become unstable by the end of May. The stability of a drilling ship by the end of May would have been quite a daunting task.
