Huge reserves of tight gas in Sui

[CLIPPER4LIFE]

Huge reserves of tight gas in Sui​

, NA informed
The petroleum minister told the National Assembly that the country’s natural gas reserves are 100 trillion cubic feet.—File photo


ISLAMABAD: In what could cheer up Pakistan about the future in present times of energy shortages, Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Asim Hussain told the National Assembly on Monday that Sui area in Balochistan had huge reserves of tight gas equivalent to its presently known natural gas reserves.

Quoting estimates that he said had been kept hidden in the past, he also put the country’s natural gas reserves at 100 trillion cubic feet, compared to previously reported estimate of nearly 29 trillion cubic feet.

What were disclosures to the house came in a speech that Dr Asim said he had to cut short on instructions from the ruling party chief whip while winding up a debate on opposition cut motions on demands for grants in the new budget for the petroleum and natural resources ministry.

A member of the opposition PML-N and a former governor of Balochistan, retired Lt-Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, told the house in a speech earlier that he had been once briefed about the existence of exploitable tight gas reserves deep under Sui equal to its presently known gas reserves.

The minister confirmed the opposition member’s statement, saying the place has “as much tight gas as in the present Sui field”, and informed the house that exploration work at the site, which is run by Pakistan Petroleum Limited, would begin in three months.

In February, the Council of Common Interests approved a policy for the exploitation of tight gas, which is natural gas reservoirs locked in difficult rock or underground formations extremely “tight” to drill.

Talking about the gas reserves, he said: “We have more than 100 trillion cubic feet,” adding that information about it had been kept hidden in the past and was “brought out by the present government”.

But he did not elaborate why and who had kept this information hidden or clarify whether the estimate included the estimate of tight gas.

Dr Asim also talked about plans for gas exploration at some other blocks in Balochistan despite the bad law and order situation in the province and progress of agreements to buy gas from Iran and Turkmenistan through pipelines yet to be built, he said: “We have a very bright future.”

But he said the “fruit” of these plans might be enjoyed by those “who come after us”.

Then petroleum and natural resources minister Naveed Qamar, in reply to a question in the National Assembly in January last, had put “total balance recoverable” from the country’s gas reserves at 28.9 trillion cubic feet – enough for more than 20 years.

Dr Asim described domestic consumption as “the worst form” of using gas, which he said must go to industry, and informed the house that the government had plans to build its first terminal for the import of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and to have marketing companies supply LPG “in every corner of the country”.

The minister promised to bring a law in the next session of the National Assembly to provide for punishing not only those who steal electricity but also those who help them do it, before the house approved the budgeted demands for grant for his ministry worth more than Rs703 million after rejecting all 33 cut motions mostly moved by PML-N members.

Before that, the house approved much bigger demands for grants worth more than Rs12 billion for the foreign ministry and worth more than Rs4 billion for the information and broadcasting ministry, after rejecting 33 cut motions about the first ministry and 35 about the second.

 

[niaz]

I have read the news in Dawn. A member of the opposition PML-N and a former governor of Balochistan, retired Lt-Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, told the house in a speech earlier that he had been once briefed about the existence of exploitable tight gas reserves deep under Sui equal to its presently known gas reserves.

Sui normal gas reserves were 14 TCF at its peak. Don’t know where the figure of 100-TCF comes from.

Pray tell me, if we had 100-trillion cubic feet of reserves, why are we signing pipeline agreement with Iran to import gas? Also this information has not been hidden in the past. Oil circles knew of existence of possible tight gas formations associated with existing gas bearing structures. Gov't officials knew about it as mentioned above. There was no point screaming about it as Pakistan won’t be able to get any benefit from it for very long time.

To explain what is a tight gas. This gas cannot be used as such. If you drill into the formation, gas will not come as it does from Sui, Qadirpur or Dharki gas fields. Tight gas is called ‘Tight’ because it is inaccessible and locked into impermeable rock. It was described to me as difficult as getting something out of the pores 20,000 times smaller than human hair!

United States has about 250 Trillion CF of the tight gas reserves but production is still on a very limited scale. Reason being that to extract gas from the tight gas bearing rocks, one needs to conduct underground explosions. Normally dynamite is used but even a nuclear explosion has been proposed. The force of this explosion would shake the gas bearing rocks violently enough for the gas to be released. Hydel fracturing is also employed but all the processes are at an embryonic stage and there are serious environmental questions. Most people don’t like explosions deep underneath the ground as it raises the water table.

To get an idea of the investment required and of the time scale; BP has already invested $600-million over last 4 years to drill test wells and do the feasibility study. Total investment in project is $15-billion. Development of Khazzan project in Oman will take 10 years with first production to start in 1016.

We have the 85-billion tons of ‘lignite’ reserves proven for the last ten years but nothing concrete has so far developed from this. We are still short of gas, electricity and petroleum products.Therefore before we get carried away, it must be clearly understood that it would take a very long time and huge amount of money before we could physically enjoy fruits having this supposedly huge gas reserve and the gas thus produced will also be very expensive. Bhasha Dam is ready to start but work is being held up for the want of funding. In the meantime load shedding continues.

 

[Vassnti]

Asim Hussain amazingly comes up with 100 trillion cubic feet of gas during budget speach, gets his buget increased and rejects all calls for cuts at a time the budget needs to be balanced.


Why does that seems suspicious?

Why again isthere every month a new article about millions of dollars worth of resources being found yet never any about then actually being recovered?