Special salary package to stop brain drain in petroleum sector

[LRE]

Special salary package to stop brain drain in petroleum sector

By Zafar Bhutta

ISLAMABAD: In order to stop brain drain from the public sector, government has decided to announce a “special salary package for petroleum engineers” in the next budget 2008-09, sources in petroleum ministry told Daily Times Saturday.

Petroleum ministry is working on the attractive salary package to be announced for the petroleum engineers following the directions of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, federal minister for Foreign Affairs, who is also holding charge of the petroleum minister.

Sources said petroleum ministry had informed the minister that Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) was facing shortage of petroleum engineers and therefore the exploration activities of oil and gas by the state run company was being hampered.

The minister was informed that petroleum engineers are going to the private sector exploration and production companies as these companies had attractive salary package for them. Sources said petroleum engineers were receiving salaries of Rs 30,000 per month to Rs 35,000 per month whereas their salaries package in the private sector oil and gas exploration companies had gone up to around Rs 700,000 per month.

Many petroleum engineers had left the public sector company OGDCL and they were working with British Petroleum, minister was informed.

OGDCL’s net sales increased by 18.01 percent to Rs 88,878 million during July-March 2007-08 from Rs 75,312 million for the comparable period last year.

Operating profit margin and net profit margin for the period under review was 61 percent and 41 percent respectively during the said period. The company spaded 15 wells out of which five were exploratory and made two discoveries during nine months 2008. Net crude oil production of 43,642 barrels per day, net gas production was 986 MMCF per day, net LPG production 368 tonnes per day and net sulphur production was 71 tonnes per day.

Petroleum minister has directed OGDCL to engage more in the oil and gas exploration activities after he was informed that exploration and production companies were the main leaders that were earning the huge profit.

Gross profit of these exploration and production companies stood at 67 percent whereas net profit was 44 percent that had risen due to rise in the crude oil prices in international market.

Sources said OGDCL should also be involved in the exploration activities so that it could earn the profit, sources said quoting the minister.

During the former government, OGDCL was also given the task to engage in more exploration activities but the private sector lobby came ahead and the head of the OGDCL was also changed to please the private sector lobby.

Sources said comparatively, exploration and production companies were earning more than other sectors and government was also mulling to revise gas and oil pricing formula for wellhead gas prices to reduce their margin.

Earlier the net profit of these companies stood at 30 percent that has shoot up to 45 percent due to hike in the oil prices in the international market. The indigenous gas discovered from gas fields located across the country is meeting 50.4 percent of Pakistan’s energy needs.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2008_pg5_3