US-based oil field services company Halliburton, better known for controversial bidding and pricing practices during the Iraq war and for allegedly destroying evidence after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, will sign an agreement with Bapex next week.
The US company of which former US vice president Dick Cheney was once the CEO, has been brought on board by state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company (Bapex) to resolve drilling snags at two onshore gas wells.
“We will sign US-based Halliburton as contractor to remove bottlenecks at two drilling jobs at the Mobarakpur 1 and Salda 4 wells,” Md Atiquzzaman, managing director of Bapex, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Drilling work at the two gas wells have ceased completely due to various problems, leaving the rigs idle for around 10 months.
Halliburton will bring in directional drilling equipment for side-tracking in the drilling of the Salda 4 gas well in Comilla and the Mobarakpur 1 gas well in Pabna.
Halliburton will charge around $1 million for the two jobs, a Bapex official said.
Drilling will take place for 11 days at Mobarakpur 1 and for 16 days at Salda 4, the Bapex managing director said.
Bapex, the drilling arm of state-owned Petrobangla, had earlier begun drilling at Mobarakpur and Salda with its own rigs, until it ran into trouble.
Two Bapex drilling rigs are now stuck after drilling 2,700 metres at Salda 4 and around 4,240 metres at Mobarakpur 1.
Drilling at Mobarakpur has been suspended for ten months after a Bapex rig tilted sideways on the drilling pad.
The rig, Bijoy 12, was deployed to Mobarakpur 1, aiming to drill up to 4,500 metres.
Bapex suffered a similar mishap at the Salda 4 site.