Govt wants to accelerate oil, gas exploration activities: Omar

Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan has said that revival of exploration and production activities in the country is a key objective of the government. The energy minister was talking to a delegation of heads of different oil and gas exploration and production companies that called on him on Thursday and discussed matters related to the oil and gas sector. The minister said that the government also wants to achieve self-sufficiency in the oil and gas sector by auctioning new exploration and production blocks and accelerating the exploration activities. He highlighted the government's proinvestment policies, ease-of-doing-business strategy in the petroleum sector and efforts to ensure transparency for providing a levelplaying field to all competitors. The delegation thanked and appreciated the government efforts for positive developments in the oil exploration and production sector and the smooth resolution of regulatory issues. It is pertinent to mention here that the overall production of petroleum commodities has witnessed an increase of 7.94 per cent during the first eight months of the financial year 2020-21 as compared to the corresponding period of last year. The Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL) products that showed growth including kerosene oil production,