KARACHI: The Directorate General Petroleum Concessions (DGPC) has asked exploration and production (E&P) companies to provide oil and gas production and sales data as part of the government’s ongoing initiative to digitise petroleum-sector workflows.
In a letter to the Pakistan Petroleum Exploration and Production Companies Association (PPEPCA), the Petroleum Division said production reporting by E&P companies was not being carried out according to the prescribed DGPC template.
The division noted that although a few companies initially adopted the template for submitting the required information, they later stopped providing data in the specified format.
According to the Petroleum Division, the reporting template was developed in consultation with industry stakeholders to capture technical and commercial parameters in a standardised format. However, the required information is not being submitted either in the prescribed format or at the required frequency.
The DGPC said the template was an essential component of its digitisation project, which is expected to be completed by October.
A meeting with industry representatives was convened on October 1 under the chairmanship of the Director General Petroleum Concessions to discuss the reporting template and obtain industry input for its finalisation and implementation.
Sources said larger E&P companies were providing the required data, while some smaller companies were reluctant to comply due to concerns relating to taxation and royalty matters.
The proposed database is expected to help the Petroleum Division obtain a clearer picture of actual exploration and production activity and assess the country’s oil and gas reserves.
Industry Seeks Practical Approach to Historical Data
PPEPCA had earlier urged the DGPC to adopt a practical approach to its requirement for historical production and sales data dating back to FY2000-01.
In August, the association said E&P companies fully supported the government’s digitisation initiative, but compiling, verifying and reconciling field-level data spanning more than 25 years was not practically feasible.
PPEPCA said many companies did not maintain operational records from such historical periods in readily retrievable digital formats. Changes in operators, ownership structures, field interests, reporting systems and archival practices over the years had also made the reconstruction and reconciliation of historical data difficult.
The association further pointed out that production and sales information had already been submitted to the DGPC through monthly, quarterly, annual and other regulatory reporting mechanisms.
It therefore asked the regulator to use and consolidate historical information already available in its records for migration into the proposed digital system, rather than requiring E&P companies to recreate the entire historical database.
The move is part of the government’s broader effort to establish a centralised digital petroleum-sector database and streamline reporting, monitoring and regulatory processes.
