By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s largest state-owned energy explorer is turning to Baker Hughes to wring additional output from oil and gas fields that have been pumping for decades, part of a broader push by Islamabad to narrow its reliance on imported fuel.
Oil and Gas Development Co. signed an agreement with the Houston-based oilfield services company to apply its Mature Assets Solutions across OGDCL’s portfolio of established fields, according to a company spokesperson. The contract, signed Tuesday in Islamabad, will roll out in two phases, with the first stage expected to be completed within a year.
The arrangement covers 18 of OGDCL’s major producing assets — 12 oil fields and six gas and condensate fields — that the company has flagged as mature and in natural decline. Baker Hughes will apply technical expertise and technology aimed at identifying untapped production potential and resolving operational bottlenecks across roughly 20 fields in total.
“The contract is first of its kind which is going to benefit around 20 MAS fields which will enhance the production capability appreciably,” the OGDCL spokesperson said.
The deal lands as Pakistan’s energy import bill continues to climb even as domestic consumption patterns shift. Petroleum product demand rose 3.5% in the July-to-March period of the current fiscal year from a year earlier, according to the latest Pakistan Economic Survey, while petroleum imports increased to 13.64 million tons from 13.17 million tons over the same stretch. Natural gas consumption averaged 2,316 million cubic feet a day in that period, with regasified liquefied natural gas adding a further 613 million cubic feet a day to the supply mix.
OGDCL currently pumps more than 40,000 barrels of crude oil a day alongside 815 million standard cubic feet of natural gas, 780 metric tons of liquefied petroleum gas and 80 metric tons of sulphur daily, making it the country’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume. The company has said in its latest annual report that it intends to lean on reservoir management and workover campaigns to keep output from older fields from falling further, deploying tools such as artificial lift systems, compression and debottlenecking to squeeze out additional barrels.
The Baker Hughes tie-up sits within what OGDCL calls its Production Optimization Drive, an initiative built around extracting more from fields already in production rather than depending primarily on fresh discoveries to offset decline.
“Under the contract, Baker Hughes will bring its technical expertise, advanced technologies and integrated capabilities to support OGDCL in identifying production opportunities and addressing challenges across mature assets,” the company said in a statement issued around the signing.
OGDCL Managing Director Ahmed Hayat Lak said at the signing ceremony that the company was pursuing partnerships with leading service providers to lift output and reinforce the country’s energy security, adding he was confident the project would be carried out efficiently to revive production from the mature fields.
Pakistan’s Special Secretary for Petroleum, Mirza Nasiruddin Mashood Ahmad, said the agreement would support efforts to maximize domestic oil and gas output as part of the country’s broader energy-security strategy.
US Chargé d’Affaires Natalie Baker, who attended the signing, called the agreement a milestone in the energy relationship between the two countries. She said energy underpins economic security and that the collaboration between OGDCL and Baker Hughes advances the shared goal of shoring up Pakistan’s energy position.
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