Profile

Mr. Muhammad Arif joined Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority as Member Gas on 21^st November 2019.

Mr. Arif holds degrees of MBA from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK, LLM in Petroleum Law and Policy from the Centre for Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Law & Policy (CEPMLP), University of Dundee, Scotland, UK, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Petroleum Economics from Oxford, England, UK. He is enrolled as an Advocate by the Punjab Bar Council, Pakistan. Mr. Arif is a Member of Society of Petroleum Engineers and Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, USA. He is a Certified Director and has been on the Board of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Oil and Gas Company Limited for a year before joining OGRA.

Prior to joining OGRA, Mr. Arif had over thirty (30) years of experience on the commercial, legal and Joint Venture affairs of upstream oil and gas business initially with OGDCL for about 20 years and then with a private oil company for about 11 years as head of Legal, Commercial and Joint Venture Departments. He has a keen interest in petroleum policy, laws and regulation and possess in-depth hands on experience of petroleum industry contracts, market restructuring and business process optimization.

Mr. Arif has deeply analyzed the various complex and multidisciplinary legal and commercial issues and rendered high profile opinions including on impact of 18^th Constitutional Amendment on oil and gas industry of Pakistan and published several articles and rendered opinions covering 18th Amendment, Pakistan’s petroleum policies and fiscal systems. He is author of numerous research papers, articles and books. He is also main author of Books "Energy Law in Pakistan ", published by Wolters Kluwer, Netherlands, and contributed a chapter on Pakistan in book titled "Upstream Law and Regulation" published by Globe Law and Business, UK. He has been a visiting Professor of the International Islamic University, Islamabad teaching Petroleum Laws of Pakistan at LLM level and has so far supervised numerous thesis relating to the oil and gas industry.

Before joining OGRA, Mr. Arif has worked as an independent legal and commercial consultant serving oil and gas industry for about three years.