ISLAMABAD: The recent attempt to find oil and gas reserves off the shore of Karachi has been futile as no hydrocarbons reserves were found.
The drilling process at the Kekra-1 well has been finished and a report in this regard has been sent to PM Imran Khan.
Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs, Ali Zaidi said earlier 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 had 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.
ExxonMobil, ENI, Oil and Gas Development Company and Pakistan Petroleum Limited conducted the drilling to determine the real size of the oil and gas reserves in the Kekra-1 well, located around 280 km away from Karachi coast.
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.
Meanwhile, Petroleum Division of the Energy Ministry Sunday said the results of four-month offshore drilling at Indus G-Block called Kekra-I, some 230-km off the Karachi coast, had shown good quality hydrocarbon reservoir but unfortunately these were water wet.
“After the well control operations, the 6? Open Hole section drilling was resumed on Friday. The reservoir was encountered at 5,492 meters and so far about 140 meters of reservoir have been drilled. The log results show a good quality reservoir but unfortunately water wet without any gas effect,” a Petroleum Division press release said.
Current depth of the well is 5,634 meters ‘Managed Depth’ and as per the plan; while another 55 meters would be drilled before proceeding with P&A (plug and abandon) operations, which has already been approved by Joint Venture Partners including Exxon.
The offshore drilling is a joint venture of ENI, Exxon Mobil, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited and Pakistan Petroleum Limited. The consortium had started drilling activities on January 13, 2019.
Hopes for the discovery of large reserves of oil and gas off Karachi coast faded after it was officially announced on Saturday that the much-celebrated offshore drilling in Kekra-1 had been stopped because no reserves were found. The operators of the well have decided to plug it in the coming days.
Around 17 attempts have been made in the past, but all remained unsuccessful despite encouraging data from each drilling. – NNI