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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