The Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) will send a summary to the Prime Minister's Office to go ahead with the signing of a deal with a foreign joint venture to conduct a 2D multi-client seismic survey of the country's offshore areas.
“We will send the summary for the prime minister's approval for inking a deal with TGS-NOPEC and Schlumberger, a Norwegian-US joint venture, to carry out a 2D multi-client survey this week,” an EMRD deputy secretary told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, requesting anonymity.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the minister in-charge of the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.
“We hope we will soon be able to sign the contract,” the deputy secretary said, adding: “After obtaining the prime minister’s approval, the summary will be sent to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.”
According to the Petrobangla plan, the successful contractor will get two years to complete the survey. Petrobangla will share the profits from the sale of the data.
“The government formed a tender evaluation committee headed by a Petrobangla director to evaluate the documents. The official evaluated and selected a firm to sign a 10-year deal with,” a Petrobangla official said.
The evaluation committee earlier recommended the EMRD to go ahead with the plan.
State-owned Petrobangla, on behalf of the government, invited re-tenders to conduct the survey on December 10 last year and received proposals from five global geophysical companies on January 31 this year.
The companies are Norway-US joint venture TGS-NOPEC and Schlumberger, Chinese company BGP, Russian firm Dalmorneftegeophysica (DMNG) and Russian Marine Arctic Geological Expedition (MAGE), and UK-Based Spec Partners Ltd.
The survey will cover an area of around 118,000 square kilometres with water depth ranging from 20 metres to more than 2,500 metres.
The objective of the survey is to provide the oil and gas industry with 2D seismic data of the offshore areas of the country to help with basin evaluation, prospect generation and robust bid-round participation.
The survey, the first of its kind in the country’s history, was deemed necessary after Bangladesh’s maritime boundaries with Myanmar and India were settled.