Petrobangla, the state-owned oil and gas company, has sent a letter of invitation to lone bidder Santos and Krisenergy, a joint venture, to explore hydrocarbons in block 11 in the shallow waters of the Bay of Bengal. “We are all set to sign the initial agreement as we have completed all procedural tasks. We are sending fax messages to the international oil companies (IOCs) in this connection. Hopefully, we will be able to sign the initial deal with the companies soon,” Petrobangla chairman Dr Hossain Monsur told The Independent.
Earlier, a summary of the Santos-Krisenergy proposal was sent to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for approval.
Santos was the operator of Sangu gas field, the lone offshore hydrocarbons block 16 under the production sharing contract (PSC), which was abandoned on October 1. It was abandoned as it had been exhausted.
Petrobangla has completed the remapping of offshore blocks and prepared the draft model PSC for the offshore bidding round 2012 by creating three blocks in the deep sea in the eastern part and identified nine blocks in shallow water, which are situated in undisputed areas, in accordance with the verdict of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
It floated tenders between December 18, 2012 and April 1, 2013, for six shallow sea blocks (2, 3, 6, 8, 10 and 11) in the Bay of Bengal, but no international company submitted bids for these.
Later, on June 26, Petrobangla extended the bid submission date by a month from June 27 to July 29. Petrobangla received the sole bid from the Santos-Krisenergy joint-venture for shallow sea hydrocarbons block 11.
Under the offer, Santos-Krisenergy will spend US$ 30 million to $32 million on block 11 (over an area of around 870 sq. km.) to conduct a two-dimensional seismic survey of 1,006 ‘line kilometres’ in the initial mandatory work programme of five years for exploration. Subsequently, it will conduct a survey on 500 line kilometres and a 300-sq.-km.
According to Petrobangla, Santos and Krisenergy will deposit $15 million as bank guarantees, an amount which they had proposed in the bidding.
Recently, Petrobangla signed three initial deals with ConocoPhillips and ONGC Videsh.
“Following the initials between the IOCs and Petrobangla, we need to take measures to sign the final PSC.
However, a few days are required before the final PSC for these three blocks can be signed,” Petrobangla director (PSC) Muhammad Imaduddin disclosed.
-With The Independent input
