A leading Romanian transnational company Industrial export S.A, which had carried out the revamping and expansion of Karachi Refinery showed keen interest to expand its operations in Pakistan.
According to Pakistan embassy sources, this was stated by the President of the Company, Florin Bratu, in his meeting with ambassador at the weekend at Bucharest (Romania), Industrial export has been prominent in export operations in the field of hydrocarbons, general entrepreneurship in the field of "turnkey" projects for the chemical industry and refineries abroad, export of oil drilling and gas equipment, manufacturing and delivery of steel structure and powder and liquid detergents.
The company has carried out business in US, China, Bangladesh, Iran, Mexico, France, Poland, Finland, Hungary, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE etc.
Ambassador Sanaullah highlighted the priority of the Government of Pakistan to transform the developing Gwadar Sea Port into a new hub of energy projects especially in the field of refineries. In this context, he pointed out the strategic importance of Gwadar, lying only 60 kms away from the main international sea-lanes.
Further, he said there was a shortage in refining capacity especially involving heavy crude oil in the world where the demand has outstripped supply, as a result, demand was growing for gas and oil in Pakistan, India and China. The business of refinery, therefore, presented bright prospects. Also, there were still un-exploited huge oil and gas deposits in Pakistan (Balochistan and North West Frontier), he added.
He called upon well established Romanian companies to look at Pakistan for drilling operations, especially in the light of government's short and long term strategy to respond to the current and future energy shortages.
Presently, the government was carrying out a multi-dimensional approach to broaden the local gas and oil production and supply chain as well as developing a viable diverse energy mix. New packages of incentives for investment in oil and gas were under way, he added.
In response, company's President Florin Bratu said his Company was aware of the huge potential for expansion in the field of oil and gas industry in Pakistan and was interested to participate in the process.
In this respect, he showed serious interest to open a representative office in Pakistan.