Premier challenged over gas exploration plans in Pakistan national

Premier Oil, the controversial energy group castigated by theBritish government over its business in Burma, will today face a legal challenge in Pakistan over plans to explore for gas in the country's oldest national park.

A coalition of Pakistani non-governmental organisations have lodged a petition to protect Kirthar National Park at the Sindh High Court, in Karachi. The case has been thrown into confusion by an amendment, made to Pakistani law after the legal challenge was first lodged late last year, which will work in Premier's favour.

The NGOs originally petitioned the court citing Sindh environmental law, which imposed an outright ban on exploration activity in the park, and doubts over Premier's environmental impact assessment. However, under an amendment brought in on 1 June by the Governor of Sindh, exploration is allowed if an environmental impact assessment shows that no harm would be done.

Premier said in July it had been given permission to conduct seismic surveys in Kirthar.

The NGOs will challenge the validity of the amendment. Friends of the Earth, the environmental campaigning group, said Premier was riding "rough-shod" over the people and wildlife of Pakistan. The group has written to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to highlight the issue and demand that he raise it at next month's Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Australia.

Craig Bennett, of Friends of the Earth, vehemently criticised the change in environmental law in Sindh, and Premier, which he claimed was "flying the flag for corporate irresponsibility".

Premier, which is led by chief executive Charles Jamieson, said: "Before any exploration work in Kirthar began, a baseline environmental impact assessment was carried out by independent consultants.... Amongst the study's conclusions were that no effect on wildlife population viability over the next 50 years could be detected."