An Italian joint venture has finalised a $100 million contract to develop the first phase of the Qadirpur gas field, operated by Premier Consolidated Oil Fields of the UK. CTIP and parent company Fochi have started work on the engineering, procurement and construction of a gas gathering system and processing facility at the field in the Indus valley. The UK's ABB Global Engineering is to supervise construction.

CTIP is doing the detailed designs, and procuring and installing the gathering system and processing plant. The installed capacity of the gathering system will be 400 million cubic feet a day (cfd) of gas, allowing for the second phase expansion to start after 1996. The processing facility will purify up to 260 million cfd at two processing trains. This package accounts for $73 million of the contract. Civil works will be done by Fochi. Part of this will be paid in local currency. Global Engineering, which prepared the basic designs, is to sign a construction supervision contract soon.

The work is to be completed by September 1995. This is the date of Premier's first gas sales according to a contract with the local Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL). SNGPL is to buy a minimum yearly average of 200 million cfd. It will market the gas through its distribution system (MEED 8:1:93).

Part of the investment will be covered by a $55 million World Bank loan through an energy development fund managed by the government (MEED 17:7:92). The concession holders will provide the remainder. The main shareholder is the local state-owned Oil & Gas Development Corporation (OGDC), which exercised its option to increase its holding to 75 per cent when the field was declared commercial. Premier holds 9.5 per cent, Burma Oil 8.5 per cent and Pakistan Petroleum (PPL) 7 per cent.

In the second phase, facilities at the field are to be extended to produce an annual average of 300 million cfd of gas. The processing plant's capacity will be boosted by adding a third train to the plant. The higher rate of production is to start when SNGPL has completed the pipeline it is building to Lahore. This is expected in 1997, although project organisers say it may be earlier.