PM for enhancing indigenous energy resources to meet country’s needs

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Saturday emphasized the need to enhance the volume of indigenous energy resources to cope with country’s needs and reduce the burden of import bill on the national economy.
Addressing the annual function of Mari Petroleum Company here, the prime minister spoke high of the company’s valuable contribution to mitigate the energy crisis in the country besides playing its role to ensure food security.
The annual event was attended by a huge number of company’s staffers and their families as the event also coincided with the golden jubilee celebrations of the company.
The prime minister commended the company for celebrating the year of highest revenue and production and congratulated the company and staffers for achieving distinction in the sector.
He said Mari always performed exceptionally and said he had also been pushing the OGDCL and PPL to excel in the same way.
The prime minister said energy was a basic block of the national economy with Exploration and Production sector being its key component.
Lauding the company for achieving the targets ahead of the schedule, the prime minister said owing to the efforts of Mari Petroleum, the country had not only achieved self-sufficiency in fertilizer, but also had started exporting the product.
Prime Minister Abbasi said the government had added around 10,000 megawatt to the national grid and was striving to produce electricity to meet country’s needs for next 15 years.
The prime minister said currently the country had surplus production of gas and all of the consumers were getting uninterrupted supply.
He commended Mari Petroleum for undertaking production enhancement initiatives in Mari Field and other blocks to help the country in bridging the ever increasing gap between demand and supply of energy.
He hoped that Mari Petroleum would also extend its operations in the shale and off-shore gas sectors to explore the yet untapped potential of the country.
He further said the company’s effort to provide uninterrupted gas supply to downstream customers for the last five decades was an unmatched achievement that had made Mari Field a model for all other operators in the country to follow.
The prime minister also distributed awards among the employees of the company who had excelled in both technical and non-technical fields.
Earlier, in his welcome speech MD Mari Petroleum, Lt. Gen. (Retd) lshfaq Nadeem Ahmad highlighted the company’s achievements.
He said the company during the recently concluded financial year produced 32.32 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOEs) energy compared with 30.48 million BOEs produced in the last year.
He said we continued with our strong financial performance and the gross sales reached the highest ever level of Rs. 96.78 billion from 94.99 billion in the last year. Similarly, net sales, which was true reflection of the Company’s operational performance, reached unprecedented level of Rs. 28.28 billion from Rs.21.71 billion in the last year.
The MD MPCL further said that the company also contributed Rs. 74.3 billion to the government exchequer in the form of royalty, taxes, levies and duties.
The company has won a number of awards from various independent bodies not only for its financial and operational performance and reporting but also for its management, HSE, HR and CSR practices.

Source: APP