The UK launched its first oil and gas licensing round since 2019 on Friday, aiming to award more than 100 licenses to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and reduce dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the regulator responsible for handling and awarding exploration and production licenses, said on Friday that it “is inviting…
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Russia is not ruling out the possibility of repairing the Nordstream gas pipelines, the Russian Embassy in Denmark said in a statement on its website on Friday. The Russian embassy criticized the efforts to investigate the pipelines following four explosions that took them offline—some say indefinitely—because the Russian side was excluded from the investigations. “The Danish side’s reluctance to involve…
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France is considering increasing its capacity for uranium enrichment as the Western allies look to reduce their reliance on Russian nuclear power plant fuel. French state-held uranium conversion and enrichment specialist Orano SA is reviewing options to boost the capacity at its Georges Besse II plant to 11 million separative work units (SWU) from 7.5 million SWU now, a statement…
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Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday struck a deal with exporters under which subsidised electricity at nearly Rs20 per unit would be provided to them in a move that will restore the trader community’s confidence in the government but would not stop misuse of the subsidy for domestic production. “The per unit electricity cost for the five export-oriented sectors has…
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The Chiniot mines and minerals reference has been returned to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as an accountability court cited the lack of jurisdiction over the matter as per the amended National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) and directed the bureau to take up the matter to the relevant forum for further action. Accountability Court Judge Zubair Shahzad Kiyani passed the orders…
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Following a hike in global oil prices, and the unavailability of LNG, the government has decided to revive revoked petroleum exploration licences and extend their validity period to boost exploration and production of indigenous gas to ensure long-term energy security. The government has received over 18 applications to extend the validity of exploration licences. Since 2015, Pakistan has relied on imported LNG…
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Shehbaz Sharif has said Islamabad should not be forced to go out with a “begging bowl” to wealthy nations responsible for about half of all greenhouse gas emissions after the floods devastated a third of Pakistan, arguing that he’d rather seek “climate justice” from the global community. In the second part of his interview published in The Guardian on Thursday,…
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The Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) Friday accorded approval to 13 projects with estimated cost of around Rs598.13 billion.The Chashma Right Bank Canal project with estimated cost of Rs189.6 billion is among the approved projects. Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Ishaq Dar chaired the meeting, while Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal,…
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Government’s move to deregulate the petroleum prices has apparently hit a snag as there has been no progress on the terms of references (ToRs) in this regard, industry officials said. The cut-off date for deregulation of petroleum prices was November 1, 2022, but the ToRs have not been finalised yet. A major reason for the slowdown in the deregulation process…
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