US-based ConocoPhillips and Norway-based Statoil have jointly dropped the bidding documents for exploring oil and gas in three deep-sea blocks (12, 16 and 21) in the Bay of Bengal yesterday, the last day for bid submission.
It would be the first and only bid after amendment to the production sharing contract (PSC). No other company could be attracted yet to work under the amended PSC.
“We hope to sign PSC after evaluation of their bidding, followed by necessary approval by the cabinet committee on economic affairs hopefully by the end of June,” Muhammad Imaduddin, Petrobangla director (PSC), told the Dhaka Tribune. “We thought we would receive tenders form at least two or three companies.”
If the contract is signed with the international oil companies, they will form a joint venture to operate in the blocks, he said. They recently submitted a joint tender to explore oil and gas in the Myanmar territory of the Bay.
Meanwhile, Petrobangla is now ready to sign PSCs for three selected shallow sea blocks.
US-based ConocoPhillips submitted tenders for block 07 and India’s state-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd for blocks 04 and 09. To explore block 12, ConocoPhillips and Statoil would conduct 1,412-line-kilometres of mandatory 2D seismic survey while 775-line-kilometres in block 16 and 1,376-line-kilometres in block 21 in the first three years.
They would also conduct 2,000-line-kilometres of 2D or equivalent 3D seismic surveys and drill one exploratory well within the next two years in all the three blocks.
They would spend $109m for the exploratory well and other works in each of the blocks. They will deposit the amount as bank guarantee as proposed in the bidding, said the Petrobangla director. After the initial five-year period, they would drill another exploratory well in each block subsequently.
The state-owned gas monopoly had first put a total of 12 blocks out for international tender on December 17, 2012 under “Bangladesh Offshore Bidding Round 2012.” Of them, nine were in the shallow sea and three in the deep sea – covering 51,589 and 10,041 square kilometres respectively.
Petrobangla earlier suspended the bidding process for the deep sea blocks, allegedly upon requests from the interested IOCs.
In October 2013, Petrobangla invited international tenders again, but not a single company had shown interest.
During the first invitation, bid documents were collected by 16 IOCs – Statoil of Norway, Premier Oil of the UK, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Anadarko Petroleum and ExxonMobil of the US, Australia-based Santos and Carnarvon, Singapore-based Kris Energy, China-based CNOOC and CNPC, India’s state-owned ONGC, Cairn India, TOTAL of France, and BAPCO of Bahrain.
In July 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also in charge of the energy ministry, consented to an Energy and Mineral Resources Division proposal to amend the PSC for deep sea hydrocarbon blocks. According to the PSC, a contractor will be allowed 20 years for an oil field and 25 years for a gas field from the approval of the development plan.
In the PSC, there is no scope to export oil and gas, but gas can be sold to a third party inside Bangladesh.
Earlier, international bidding was called under the PSC in 1993, 1997 and 2008.