Oil prices increased by 54 percent in last four years, National Assembly told

The government increased prices of petroleum products by 54 percent during in last four years. "The government did not decrease POL prices seven times as compared to international market. As many as 27 times petroleum products prices were decreased in international market, while in Pakistan the prices were cut 20 times during the period.
The government increased oil prices by 7.4 percent in 2009, 12.9 percent in 2010, 22.4 percent in 2011 and 10.3 percent in December 1, 2011," Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain told the National Assembly on Monday. The government also increased petroleum products' prices by Rs 5.13 per/liter on last Saturday.
The minister said that a total of 38.47 million tons of crude oil were refined/processed by oil refineries from 2008 to June 30, 2011. He told the house that there was no oil shortage in the country at present. To a question, Dr Asim said foreign companies have been hired for drilling. "The number of rigs hired is determined by the number of wells to be drilled each year, as specified in the Company's Business Plan," he added. He said that the government had paid a total of 4.56 billion to rig contractors during 2010-11. He said that the average production of (oil and gas) OGDCL had been decreased in 2009-10 and 2010-11 as compared to 2008-09.
The minister said that PSO arranged about 3 million tons of diesel annually from Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The minister said that 35.17 million barrels of anticipated recoverable oil reserves and 582.48 billion cubic feet anticipated recoverable gas reserves from 15 discoveries had been added to the national hydrocarbon reserves whereas the rest of the discoveries were under evaluation/appraisal.
He said that 24.04 million barrels crude oil had been locally produced from July 2010 to June 2011, 9.7 million barrels from July to November 2011, while petroleum products locally refined during July 2010 to June 2011 was 9.43 million tons and from July to September 2011 2.2 million tons.