KARAK: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi here Thursday arrived at Karak district and inaugurated Neshpa Oil and Gas and LPG project.
Upon arrival, the prime minister was received by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagara and senior leaders of PML-N.
The prime minister said, “In the past, the country had suffered billions of rupees losses due to non-completion of oil and gas projects, which were kept pending for one reason or the other.
He said the plant had been lying pending with OGDCL (Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd) for several years and had been incurring heavy losses to the national exchequer. He especially thanked the chairman of the Chinese company for his role in getting the project completed in time. No other company, he added, was ready to work on the abandoned project and it was the Chinese company, which had committed to finish it.
He said the processing plant would help meet the growing energy needs of the country. It would generate income of Rs60 billion per annum. Rs42 billion royalty had been paid, while the federal government had received Rs85 billion on account of taxes. Prime Minister Abbasi said the gas was also being utilised in Karak and a lot of its quantity was not being fully utilized. He called for optimum utilization of gas as it was vital for national development.
He said an investment of Rs20 billion had been made into the plant, which was producing 400 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) per day. Pakistan, he said, today had 1800 tonnes of LPG production per day and not even a single tonne was being provided as a quota. The OGDCL alone was producing 1000 tonnes of LPG per day. It was generating an income of Rs10 billion per annum, he added.
He said today CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) and power plants were smoothly running in the country, which had helped improve the energy and gas situation and as a result, foreign investment was coming to the country.
He said the government would not import furnace oil for the next three years. Had those measures taken in the past, the people would not have to face the energy crisis, he added. The prime minister said the culture of corruption in the form of installation of transformers and gas connections had been abolished. It was a major achievement of the present government as earlier the LPG production and distribution were confined into a few hands only, he added.
The prime minister said when the PML-N government took over in 2013, some 16-18 hours of load-shedding was a routine matter, which had impacted the industrial and agricultural sectors negatively, besides making the lives of people miserable. He said the government launched and got completed scores of energy projects, both medium and mega ones, and as a result, load-shedding was now history, as the country today had surplus electricity. Only those feeders where the line losses were high, had to face power outages, he added.
He said today there were only a few complaints of shortage of gas and electricity in the country, which too, he hoped, would be addressed in the days ahead. Prime Minister Abbasi expressed the hope that gas production from the gas field would go a long way in making the life of the local people easy.
While quoting a recent IMF report, the Prime Minister said Pakistan had put itself on the road to progress by meeting its energy shortages. Highlighting the achievements of the government, he said the PML-N government in the last three years had started work on 1700 kilometres of motorways, which was unprecedented, besides completing various electricity, gas and highways projects.
The Prime Minister announced a women university for Karak district, completion of electricity projects in the area, while the National Highways Authority (NHA) would complete two roads – Shakardara to Banda Daud Shah Road and Thal Road. He also directed the OGDCL to establish a model school in the premises of Nashpa field.
He also announced the Prime Minister’s Health Cards Scheme for the Karak district, besides bonus salary of one month for the employees of the OGDCL. He said various electricity projects in the area would also be completed by the federal government.
Earlier upon his arrival for the inauguration of the plant, the Prime Minister was received by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra The plant is located at the Nashpa field of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The event was also attended by the OGDCL chairman, senior officials and local people.
