Pakistan’s Oil & Gas Development Company (OGDC) will scale up tight-gas studies, accelerate its shale programme and move ahead with deep-water exploration as part of a revised upstream plan, Managing Director Ahmed Lak said.
OGDC expects to spud a deep-water well at the Deepal prospect in the Indus Basin in the fourth quarter of 2026, he told Reuters. The offshore push follows the recent award of a new block to a consortium including Turkey’s TPAO, PPL and OGDC.
The company is also expanding assessments of unconventional resources. Lak said OGDC had tripled its tight-gas study area to 4,500 sq km after updated seismic and reservoir modelling indicated wider potential. Phase two of the technical review will conclude by end January, with development plans to follow. “We started with 85 wells, but the footprint has expanded massively,” he said.
Early results point to tight-gas characteristics across multiple reservoirs in Sindh and Balochistan.
OGDC is simultaneously advancing shale work. After completing a single test well, the company now aims to drill five to six shale wells in 2026–27, targeting flows of 3–4 mmcfd per well. Lak said the programme could scale to hundreds or over 1,000 wells if the pilot proves successful, potentially adding 600 mmcfd to 1 bcfd of new supply. He said OGDC is open to foreign partners, including reciprocal acreage arrangements.
Pakistan has been viewed as prospective for tight and shale gas, though commercial production has not been achieved. A 2015 U.S. Energy Information Administration estimate put the country’s technically recoverable shale oil resource at 9.1 billion barrels, while a 2022 study found parts of the Indus Basin comparable to North American shale plays. Analysts say significant work remains on geomechanics, fracking capacity and water availability.
The unconventional push comes as Pakistan faces a short-term gas surplus driven by weak demand, increased solar uptake and a rigid LNG import schedule. The imbalance has forced OGDC to curtail output and led the government to divert cargoes from Italy’s ENI and seek revised terms with Qatar.
OGDC recently received Rs7.73 billion as the third interest payment under Pakistan’s circular debt plan.
