The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Bangladesh Government needs to invest about $8 billion to search and develop the 24 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) estimated reserve in order to meet domestic demands in coming days.

"As per gas sector master plan and strategy, we need about 24 TCF additional gas to meet local demand up to the year 2025, which requires about $8 billion investment," said the special assistant to Chief Adviser for the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Prof M Tamim. He was addressing the inaugural session of the Road Show for the Offshore Bidding Round-2008.

Bangladesh, with 13.54 TCF of proven and recoverable gas reserves, is facing at least 100 million cubic feet of gas (mmcf) shortages a day, as the country can supply up to 1,738 mmcf of gas against daily demand of 1,833 mmcf.

According to him, gas consumption over the last decade has been increasing at an average rate of 8 per cent per annum where its major consumer was the power plants and the fertiliser factories.

As a trade and investment friendly atmosphere is prevailing in Bangladesh, awarding process would be finalised by October and hopefully exploration process for new reserves will start by the next winter, he added.

"We have discovered five coal deposits with proven reserve of about 2,350 million tons and the proven plus probable of about 3450 million tons. Soon we are expecting a coal policy, which will address the concerns surrounding extraction of coal," he added.

Mohammad Mohsin Secretary for the energy division and Chairman Jalal Ahmed also delivered their speeches on the occasion.

Over 80 companies from home and abroad have registered for the Road Show. Twenty-five information packages and 17 promotional packages have been sold.

Bangladesh offshore has been recently divided into 30 blocks of different sizes ranging from 2,611 sq km to 7,703 sq km for petroleum exploration. Of these 30 blocks, 2 blocks are already under PSC since 1997. While the rest 28 blocks have been opened for interested international companies for petroleum exploration and development under production sharing contract.