From Perks to Production: OGDCL Management Shifts Priorities

Islamabad: The Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) — Pakistan’s largest state-run oil and gas explorer, has shifted its focus on optimizing oil and gas production to address the issue of the energy crisis in Pakistan.

Though the past management has been facing controversies over high perks and luxury car imports, the current management has chalked out a strategy to optimize production. The company has achieved several successes in this regard.

The company had made a substantial increase in oil production from its Kunnar Oil Field in Hyderabad, Sindh.

The company has added 1,160 barrels per day (bpd) of oil. At Kunnar-12, OGDCL had successfully replaced a Jet Pump with an Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) aimed at boosting production from 1,060bpd to 1,820bpd, registering an increase of 760bpd.

OGDCL also acquired an additional 7.99% working interest in the Qadirpur Development and Production Lease (D&PL) from KUFPEC Pakistan BV while increasing it stake in the Qadirpur D&PL from 75% to 82.99%.

Country’s top oil & gas exploration company—OGDCL—with its new Managing Director, Shahid Salim Khan, is against the footprints of its successors for wheeling & dealing by putting aside the decision in the larger interests of the company.

During earlier years, according to the local largest daily Urdu newspaper, the newly appointed MD had fixed his own salary of Rs 3.8 million per month along with a chauffeur-driven 2400CC imported vehicle, which is a surprise for the members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

One of the members of the PAC was stunned by saying that an imported vehicle of worth Rs 16.5 million needs justification for an MD of a publicly listed company, not in Pakistan but abroad as well.

The former MD, Shahid Salim Khan, further added to the injuries of parliamentarians by saying that OGDCL has such a lavish and luxurious vehicle at its disposal that it cannot use it.

According to another media report that the state-run Oil & Gas exploration monopoly had also doled out Rs 77 million to one of its leasees in Balochistan on the request of the Secretary Petroleum, Mian Asad Hayauddin, against the decision of the BoDs of the company.

The OGDCL has paid a hefty sum to lure its disgruntled ally, Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), Nawabzada Shazain Bugti, ahead of the voting on the Finance Bill 2020, said the paper.

On the advice of the federal government, Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDC) Managing Director Shahid Saleem has approved to pay Nawabzada Shazain Bugti an additional 36pc as rent for 2,500 acres of oil and gas fields situated at Uch, Dera Bugti, it said, adding that OGDCL has paid Rs79,000 per acre rent to Nawabzada Shazain Bugti with effect from 1st January 2018, despite the land not being in OGDC’s use since February 2017.

It is pertinent to mention here that former OGDC MD Zahid Mir had surrendered 2,500 acres of oil and gas fields and had kept 1,300 acres of land as additional land.

The paper further said that approximately Rs8 billion worth of heavy burden has been put on the national exchequer due to the approval by Shahid Saleem. A cheque worth Rs77.2 million has been issued to Nawbzada Shazain Bugti and his two brothers before the inking of the amended agreement. Read More Stories on NewzToday