Hungary's MOL Keen to Venture into Baluchistan
Hungarian MOL has been operating in Pakistan since 1999, produces almost 9% of the country's gas, and is its second largest oil producer.
Today most of its Pakistan operations are in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with some in Punjab state, but it is now looking to expand into the southern province of Baluchistan that borders with Iran.
“We are open for interesting opportunities, if such arise in other areas of the country as well. The province of Baluchistan has a few prospects that we would like to evaluate for this purpose. MOL as the operator currently provides around 8.6% of the gas needs of the population of Pakistan. With a strong commitment to Pakistan, MOL is interested to pursue opportunities and enter new blocks,” a company official told NGW.
MOL upstream chief Berislav Gaso earlier this month called on Pakistani prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and expressed the company's keen desire to explore investment opportunities in Baluchistan in addition to the existing operations at various places in the country.
MOL, OGDCL MoU
Hungarian MOL Group and Pakistan's national upstream company OGDCL have decided to take their long standing partnership beyond Pakistan and have signed a memorandum of understanding September 13 to explore together further opportunities overseas.
The MoU was signed by Graham Balchin, CEO, MOL Pakistan Oil & Gas Company, on behalf of MOL Group and Zahid Mir, managing director of Islamabad-based OGDCL.
“The objective of the MoU is to express the intention to further evaluate business opportunities in E&P projects. It will serve instrumental in exchanging technical knowledge and industry experience between the two companies to discuss potential international upstream growth and partnership,” the official told NGW. The official added that MOL is primarily focusing on regions where it already has a good track record and expertise such as the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan as well as the former Soviet Union region.
Existing operations
Currently, MOL Pakistan is the operator of the Tal, Margala and Margala North blocks and has participation in three non-operated blocks namely Karak, Ghauri and DG khan. It has nine discoveries to its credit in operated blocks namely Manzalai, Makori, Mamikhel, Maramzai, Makori East, Tolanj, Mardankhel-1, Makori deep-1 and Tolanj West and four discoveries in non-operated blocks namely Halini, Ghauri, Kalabagh and Halini deep. In these existing operations, as well as being Pakistan's second largest oil producer, it is also the largest producer of liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
MOL's yearly gross average production at its Tal Block reached 78,000 boe/d in 2016.
MOL upstream chief Dr Berislav Gaso (Photo credit: MOL)
Shardul Sharma