Kekra-1 well in Indus G block which is situated around 280 km away from Karachi coast is under oil hunt by the joint venture of ENI, Exxon Mobile, OGDC and PPL.
After the pause of 23 days, drilling has now been resumed, and it is said to be in the final phase. Current depth is 5148 meters, whereas required depth is 5460 meters, which will be done within days. After the achievement of required depth, the operator will do wireline lodging, taking a couple of more days. This will be followed by the casing and cementing exercise that can take 3-4 days. Specimen of the well will then be sent to Italy for tests, ascertaining if there is a reservoir of oil and gas in the well or not.
Drilling had started in January 2019 at the cost of 75 million USD which has now increased by 20 million USD by now. The project witnessed many turmoils and it got delayed so many times. The deadline has now be revised to mid of May from April 2019.
Recently international energy research agency Rystad Energy in a report said that the Kekra-1 project for oil and gas reserves in Pakistani waters is among three highly prospective wells in the world. It has a pre-drill prospective resource estimate of 1.5 billion barrels of oil or equivalent.
