A.Waseem Khattak
The oil and gas reserves hidden beneath the soil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Karak district have been playing a crucial role in meeting the country’s energy needs for years. However, a clear account has never surfaced regarding how much of a share the local people receive from the wealth of a district that provides Pakistan with resources worth billions of rupees. The company operating in Karak’s Gurguri Banda daud shsh tehsil has one exploratory and nine developmental wells in the Makori Gas Field, with a total of twelve active wells in the area. On average, 16.19 million cubic feet of gas, 183 barrels of condensate, and 125 tons of LPG are extracted daily from this field. Under the supervision of MOL Company, an additional 16,000 barrels of oil and 300 million cubic feet of gas are obtained daily from Makori, Manzalai, Tal Block, and other fields. Nashpa Oil Field, considered OGDCL’s best nationwide, produces 20,575 barrels of oil and 65 to 76 million cubic feet of gas daily. Each of its four gas wells has a pressure of 390 PSI, an excellent rate by global standards. In the Togh Bala area of the district, the situation is even more remarkable; 7,000 barrels of oil and 2,500 cubic feet of gas are extracted daily, marking the highest production from any single well in the entire country. Last year, Pakistan Oilfields also made a new discovery in the Tal Block, estimating an output of approximately 22 million cubic feet of gas and 2,112 barrels of crude oil per day. At the provincial level, 40 percent of the country’s crude oil—roughly 30,000 barrels per day—is sourced from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Karak is a prominent hub of this production. Converting the value of these figures into Pakistani currency makes the picture even clearer. The Makori Oil and Gas Field alone generates a daily net income of 300 million rupees, while the fields under MOL Company generate a daily income of 600 million rupees.
Out of this income, 50 percent of the royalty is transferred to the province. The province then returns only 10 percent of this royalty to Karak district, and even that amount is not spent properly on the district. In simple terms, the share Karak receives back from the royalty of its own land amounts to a mere five percent of the total income. Over the past twenty years, billions of rupees have gone into the government treasury, and the province’s annual budget is largely funded by this very income from Karak. Even Khushal Khan Khattak University has been funded for years by this royalty money. Despite this, Karak itself has suffered from electricity load-shedding and severe gas crises, prompting repeated protests from the local population. Furthermore, the royalties, funds, and the latest annual budget allocated exclusively for Karak have never been officially published anywhere.
The statistics that are available mostly stem from individual reports or statements by local representatives rather than any consolidated official record. The provincial government recently admitted the need to create a formal mechanism to bring transparency to the use of royalty funds. This means the very institution distributing the money acknowledges that the accounting is not transparent. The situation is best summarized by a local elected representative from Gurguri, who noted that while the federal and provincial governments receive royalties from the oil and gas extracted from Karak, their own district continues to become more impoverished. This disparity is visible in both the statistics and the ground realities. A region’s development is not measured solely by how many barrels of oil or gas are extracted from it; true development is measured by how much of that income is spent on children’s education, medical treatment, and basic amenities for families. Until a complete and transparent record of royalty and development funds is presented to the public, the people of Karak will continue to ask: where exactly does the wealth extracted from their district go? The land of Karak has given much to Pakistan, yet received deprivation and injustice in return. At the very least, there must now be an accounting for the past.
A.Waseem Khattak
Email:awaseemkhattak@gmail.com
