KOHAT, July 31 The district government has been showing reluctance to give security clearance to the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) for installation of drilling plant in Sheikhan area fearing Taliban attack.

An official told Dawn on condition of anonymity on Friday that an European company had abandoned work on the installation of rig in the Sheikhan area located in close proximity to the Frontier Region of Kohat due to security reasons and handed over the project to the OGDCL many months back.

The Sheikhan village was a no-go area of Kohat and just 100 yards away from Darra Adamkhel mountains.

The company had remained engaged in drilling the Thall tehsil of Hangu district in the past as well but had to leave the area after the battle between security forces and the militants intensified in the Kohat region.

As a sequel to this unusual development, the OGDCL moved an application in which the district coordination officer and political agent of Frontier Region of Kohat was requested to allow them to start work.

The unusual delay had already caused huge losses to the company and further delay could lead to the cancellation of the profit-earning project.

A senior member of the OGDCL staff confided that they had asked the head office to sanction special hard-area allowance for the staff for starting work on the project.

He regretted that the higher authorities had been delaying the sanction of the said allowance due to unknown reasons.

The district coordination officer Kohat was also hesitant to issue security clearance certificate so that the work on the Sheikhan project could be started at earliest, an official said.

About the overall progress of the OGDCL in the Thall Block, he said that drilling on the Mela-3 in Shakardarra area of Kohat and Nashta field in Karak had been successfully completed. The commercial supply was expected to start within few months after required tests.

Huge oil and gas reserves had been found in these two areas, the official claimed. Similarly, the drilling was going on smoothly on Saib Gul rig in Chorlakki and Khwaja-1 in Nakband areas of Kohat and preliminary tests had showed positive results.

“If the security situation is not improved in the oil and gas rich region of the Thall block including Kohat, Hangu, Darra Adamkhel, Karak and in the Waziristan agencies the burden of oil import bill on the state will continue to swell.

And keeping the country self-sufficient and cutting oil prices for the public benefit will always remain a dream,” he apprehended.