The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Gas from the new discoveries under ongoing 3rd round international block biding would take at least eight years, said Petrobangla officials at a press briefing yesterday in the capital.

"We have set eight years to complete seismic survey, exploration and development of shallow gas fields and nine years for deepwater gas fields," Petrobangla Director (PSC) Major (Retd) Muktadir Ali told reporters at the Petrobangla office.

It had seen good initial interest from international oil groups for its planned auction of offshore gas blocks, he said.

The government body to deal with national petroleum sector issued tenders for international oil companies (IOCs) last month to explore 28 offshore gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal.

"The response from the IOCs is more than our expectations. So far 15 firms have bought documents at a cost of $7,500 each," Chairman Petrobangla Jalal Ahmed told reporters.

Officials said the firms included Thai PTT Exploration and production PTTE.BK, Australia's Santos International (STO.AX: Quote, Profile, Research), Singapore-based Pearl Energy, ConocoPhilips, China's CNPC International, Japan's Nippon Oil Exploration, India's ONGC Videsh and Canada's Talisman Energy.

"Demand for gas is increasing at a rate of 10 per cent every year and is expected to reach at 5,700 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) in the year of 2025," Jalal said.

Bangladesh now supplies up to 1,738mmcf of gas daily against a daily demand of 1,833mmcf, officials said.

He also said Bangladesh would expedite the tender process as existing gas reserves were depleting fast and would sign production sharing contracts in October so that exploration could begin by next winter.

"We will require about 24 trillion cubic feet of gas over the next 17 years to achieve the economic growth at the rate of 7 per cent," he added.

Ruling out the allegations made by some quarters that the government is not maintaining transparency and fairness in the bidding process; the Petrobangla chairman said there is nothing to hide here as all the documents were posted on the websites and anybody could have access to go through the documents.

Replying to a question on legality of the bidding and any possible litigation, he said the Petrobangla obtained all the requisite approval from the government, including vetting by the law ministry.

Muktadir Ali said that the present model production-sharing contract (PSC) prepared for the 3rd-round bidding has got some differences in terms of arbitration procedures. "We had to keep the arbitration provision in compliance with the Bangladesh Arbitration Act 2001 under which arbitration venue will be in Dhaka," he said.