In good news for Pakistan, Imran Khan said that the country is all set to discover a huge reserve of oil and gas in the Arabian Sea. The Prime Minister believes that this revolutionary discovery will soon solve the economic problems of the country. A little while ago, Pakistan’s all-weather ally China committed to offering $2 billion loan to cash-strapped Pakistan in a bid to boost the country’s economy.
“I implore that we all pray that Pakistan gets this natural resource in substantial quantity. Our hopes and expectations from the offshore drilling being carried out by the ExxonMobil-led consortium prove to be true,” Pakistan PM said on Thursday.
“There’s already been a delay of about three weeks, but if the indications we are getting from the companies are anything to go by, there’s a strong possibility that we may discover a very big reserve in our waters. And if that happens, Pakistan will altogether be in a different league,” he said.
However, Imran Khan remained tight-lipped as he did not share further details of the offshore drilling process in a chat with a group of newspaper editors and other senior journalists. Also, there has been no official confirmation from ExxonMobil and the international oil exploration company ENI which have been involved since January in drilling an ultra-deep well (230km inside the sea) for oil known as Kekra-1 area.
Italy’s ENI and US oil major Exxon Mobil are together drilling for gas offshore in Pakistan’s Arabian Sea. Many other Western companies have left more than a decade ago due to Islamist militant violence. It should be noted that ExxonMobil returned to Pakistan after nearly a decade after surveys were done last year suggesting the chances of big oil reserves within the Pakistani waters itself.
The Prime Minister said that with the help of friendly nations like Saudi Arabia, UAE and China, the government took steps to help Pakistan.
Pakistan had previously received $1 billion each from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as part of the ‘bailout packages’ by the two Gulf nations in order to help strengthen Pakistan capital Islamabad’s decreasing foreign currency reserves.