• Home
• /
• Business

Global investors ready to secure Pak Ogdcl GDR

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's Minister for Privatisation and Investment Zahid Hamid has said 50 reputed international investors were ready to secure Global Depository Receipt (GDR) of Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited (Ogdcl) which will be disinvested by October 2007.

"We have just successfully held road shows in London and New York where 50 potential international investors have shown their huge interest in the GDR of the Ogdcl," he claimed.

Talking to Khaleej Times he said he himself led the delegation which toured London and New York to offer Ogdcl's GDR to reputed international investors. "And their response was extremely good and we are very encouraged by that," the minister for privatisation and investment said.

He said first leg of the road shows have been completed and within this week another delegation would be visiting Hong Kong and Singapore to offer GDR to the investors.

Later, financial adviser of Ogdcl, Citibank group and Goldman Sachs, will work out various details to finalise the transaction by October 2006, he said.

The Privatisation Commission, in July 2002, had offered 51 per cent shares of the company for privatisation with management control. Later Expressions of Interest (EOIs) were invited from reputed and financially sound investors, acting solely or as part of consortium and having relevant upstream experience.

The government had intended to finalise the privatisation process at a relatively fast pace, but there were delays due to different reasons.

According to some reports, a number of overseas oil and gas exploration companies have now expressed their keen interest in buying stakes in Ogdcl, provided it was broken up into various entities instead of offering the company as a whole. They have reportedly said that specified fields of Ogdcl, which were producing oil or gas or both and had sufficient reserves to last for years, were of interest to the foreign companies. If the fields were offered separately then the foreign companies would not have to indulge in the overall management of Ogdcl, in which they foresee problems because of strong workers union of the company.

The company has largest acreage position in Pakistan with considerable exploration upside and significant scope for appraisal and development.

Ogdcl, the largest oil and gas company of Pakistan, has also acquired state-of-the-art workstation facilities for interpretation and evaluation, which reportedly enabled delineation of 25 exploratory prospects in various Ogdcl operated concessions.

Under the strategic plan of Ogdcl rationalisation, one of the options was not to relinquish the exploration leases portfolio and certain other assets to the private investors under the proposed privatisation plan.

The financial advisers had their own views on this. Also, the question of sale of Ogdcl in one go or in parts had first arisen on submission of the initial report of the financial advisers appointed by the Privatisation Commission for Ogdcl privatisation.