Offshore oil-gas exploration
Petrobangla to float tenders by late Oct
Petrobangla will float international tenders for oil and gas exploration in the Bay of Bengal by the end of October, said officials.
They said that officials of the Energy Division and Petrobangla on Monday afternoon discussed the matter at a meeting chaired by Mohammad Mesbah Uddin, the secretary of the Energy Division.
Petrobangla’s chairman Hossain Monsur told New Age that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had recently approved a proposal in this regard.
He said that they would send the proposed Model Production Sharing Contract 2012 to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs soon.
‘Petrobangla will float tenders in the undisputed areas of the shallow and deep sea after the Cabinet committee approves the proposal,’ he said.
Monsur also said that they would talk to the foreign ministry for finalising the maps of hydrocarbon blocks in the Bay which would be offered in the tenders.
However, a Petrobangla official said that the corporation had sketched 12 blocks, nine being in the shallow sea, and the rest in the deep sea. The plan has been approved by the prime minister who also heads the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.
He said that the government initially wanted to invite foreign firms for oil and gas exploration in both land and sea through tenders.
But later the government revised its decision to allow the state-run petroleum exploration and production company, Bapex, explore for oil and gas on land, and let the foreign companies look for gas in the undisputed areas in the Bay.
In 2011 Petrobangla submitted a draft of the Model Production Sharing Contract to the Energy Division for oil and gas exploration.
According to the draft, the Petrobangla or its affiliates will buy the contractor’s share of gas and pay it $4.157 for 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas extracted from the shallow sea, though at present it pays $2.90 for the same volume of gas.
For gas from the deep sea, the Petrobangla will pay the contractor $4.573 for one unit.
The IOCs who win the bids will get a total of eight years, instead of seven years, to complete exploration and begin supply of gas from the offshore gas-fields under the modified PSC.
The bid winners of the blocks that are located in the shallow part of the sea will have to complete the necessary seismic surveys and drill exploration wells within four years after signing the PSCs.
For the winners of deep sea blocks it will not be mandatory to drill wells within four years. They will, however, have to complete seismic surveys and other necessary exploration within the timeframe.
Courtesy of New Age
