By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Oil and Gas Development Co., Pakistan’s largest listed company, reported record annual profit after a spike in global crude prices tied to the US and Israeli strikes on Iran overwhelmed a sluggish first nine months of the fiscal year.
Net income for the 12 months through June climbed 43% to Rs242.4 billion ($870 million), the Islamabad-based company said in a stock exchange filing Friday, citing board approval of the results at a meeting held that day. That compares with Rs169 billion a year earlier.
The results mask a lopsided year. Profit for the first three quarters — July 2025 through March 2026, largely before the conflict — actually fell about 12% to Rs115 billion from Rs130 billion in the same period a year earlier. It was the fourth quarter alone, covering April through June, that transformed the company’s year: post-tax profit of roughly Rs128 billion in those three months exceeded the combined total from the first nine, marking OGDCL’s strongest quarter on record.
The swing illustrates how the June conflict between Israel, the US and Iran rippled through global energy markets, with Brent crude jumping in the weeks following the strikes before easing back. For OGDCL, which sells oil and gas domestically at prices linked to international benchmarks, the spike arrived just in time to salvage a fiscal year that had been tracking behind the prior one.
Net sales revenue for the full year came to Rs449.2 billion. Earnings per share rose to Rs56.35 from Rs39.50.
The board declared a final cash dividend of Rs6 a share, or 60%, which it called the highest quarterly payout in the company’s history. Combined with Rs11 a share already distributed in interim dividends, the total payout for the year reached Rs17 a share, or 170% — also a company record.
OGDCL said it funneled Rs187 billion to Pakistan’s national exchequer over the year through corporate tax, dividends, royalties and other levies, while its production delivered an estimated $3.31 billion in foreign-exchange savings by displacing energy imports — a notable figure for a country that has repeatedly turned to the International Monetary Fund to shore up its reserves. The company’s collection rate hit 107%, with Rs577 billion recovered during the year, it said.
Shares in the company gained 52% over the fiscal year, outpacing the benchmark KSE-100 Index’s 44% advance. That left OGDCL with a market capitalization of about Rs1.44 trillion as of June 30, keeping its position as Pakistan’s most valuable listed company.
Exploration Push
Beyond the windfall, OGDCL pointed to what it described as its most productive exploration year in recent memory. The company made nine oil and gas discoveries, adding 120 million barrels of oil equivalent to its proven and probable reserves and posting a reserves-replacement ratio of 236% — a record for the company and a figure that, if sustained, would mean OGDCL is adding reserves faster than it depletes them by a wide margin.
Drilling activity climbed accordingly. OGDCL spudded 23 wells and drilled a combined 58,333 meters, the most in five years, while adding stakes in 15 exploration blocks.
Average daily net saleable production rose to 32,861 barrels of crude oil, 667 million cubic feet of gas and 670 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas — increases of 6.3%, 2.3% and 4.4% respectively from a year earlier, despite what the company described as continued production curtailments. Gross crude output topped 40,000 barrels a day in April, the company said, the first time it had cleared that threshold in 27 quarters — a stretch of nearly seven years — as it worked to help close Pakistan’s energy supply gap amid regional security concerns.
A standout contributor was the Baragzai X-1 well, which began production in April and is now producing about 5,968 barrels of oil, 17 million cubic feet of gas and 60 tonnes of LPG daily. OGDCL estimates the well’s five producing formations could eventually yield a combined 15,000 barrels of oil and 45 million cubic feet of gas per day once fully developed. The company also brought the Jhal Magsi development project online and completed a front-end compression project at its Dakhni field.
Lithium Find
Among the year’s disclosures, OGDCL said it confirmed what it described as Pakistan’s first major discovery of high-grade lithium in geothermal brine, made during testing of geothermal water at its Wahid Bakhsh-1 well. The finding adds a potential new resource line for a company that has historically focused on conventional oil and gas, at a moment when lithium demand is being driven globally by electric-vehicle and battery production.
The company said it also advanced enhanced oil recovery work at its Kunnar-Pasakhi field, pursued revitalization of the aging Rajian heavy-oil field, and continued evaluating other mature assets. It described progress on shale and tight-gas initiatives as well, alongside its stakes in the Reko Diq copper-gold project and Abu Dhabi’s Offshore Block-5 — investments it characterized as part of a broader push to diversify beyond hydrocarbons.
ESG Milestones
OGDCL said it introduced its first environmental, social and governance strategy during the year and published inaugural climate disclosures aligned with the framework set by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. It also became the first Pakistani company to join the United Nations Environment Programme’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, and reported zero workplace fatalities for the year.
The Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy ranked OGDCL first among corporate donors in its 2025 Corporate Philanthropy Awards, the company said.
The board credited management for the results and said it expects the company to continue expanding its resource base while reinforcing Pakistan’s energy security.
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