The government is going to have a fresh bidding process for 2D multi-client seismic survey in the country’s offshore areas, cancelling the previous tender without any apparent reason and depriving the nation’s development goals of energy security.
“The Prime Minister’s Office has directed us to invite a new tender after cancelling the previous one,” a senior official of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, seeking anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Sources said the misguidance of decision makers in appointing a selected surveyor had slowed down the momentum of the government initiative.
The government received tender proposals in March this year, but has not been able to award the contract for the job since then.
However, the state-owned hydrocarbons corporation Petrobangla had planned to complete the contract award process by September. The month was chosen keeping in mind the utilisation of the full dry season that starts in September and ends in March next year.
On April 13, a government evaluation committee recommended that the Energy and Mineral Resources Division sign a deal with Norwegian-US joint venture TGS-NOPEC and Schlumberger to conduct the seismic survey.
The US-based Geotrace captured the second position in the evaluation of the tender.
After evaluation, Petrobangla sent their offers to the Energy Division for the next step. Making their own review, the Energy Division then put forward the relevant files for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Sensing that they may lose the bid race, some competitors then allegedly tried to influence the bidding process through lodging complaints with the PMO to disrupt a fair evaluation.
Energy experts believe that mainly the lack of adequate seismic data and information discouraged the potential IOCs from participating in the bidding round.
On February 9, the state-owned Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation, commonly known as Petrobangla, invited tenders from international geophysical companies to conduct the survey on a non-exclusive multi-client basis.
Responding to the invitation, five international geophysical companies submitted tender documents on March 29.
According to the Petrobangla plan, the successful contractor would get two years’ time to complete the survey. Petrobangla will share the profits from the sale of the data.
The survey coverage area is around 118,000sq-km with a water depth ranging from 20 metres to more than 2,500 metres.
There is a great potential for finding hydrocarbons in Bangladesh’s maritime territory as both India and Myanmar have already discovered remarkable gas reserves in the Bay of Bengal.
The country’s offshore areas are now well demarcated following verdicts from international courts, which are considered some of the major achievements of the present government.
The hydrocarbon unit of India uses the new data to update its hydrocarbon database which finally play a big role in attracting foreign and Indian companies in hydrocarbon exploration.
Energy experts and Petrobangla officials are all of the opinion that Bangladesh government should follow the same way to update its hydrocarbon database.
They said the government should immediately appoint the most competent company it can get, one which has a proven successful track record for data acquisition.
The data is far more important for Bangladesh as most of its onshore and offshore areas remain without any seismic survey.