State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited yesterday began experimentally extracting 20 million cubic feet of gas per day from the fourth well at the Shahbazpur gas field in Bhola.
Bapex, a subsidiary of the state-owned Petrobangla, initiated the drilling of wells through Gazprom, the Russian state-run gas exploration company.
With this, Gazprom finished drilling the 10 wells around the country for which it had been contracted.
Gas from this well will be supplied to the under-construction 225MW power plant of the Power Development Board (PDB).
A PDB official said the construction of the PDB power plant would be completed by March next year. “So, the gas [extracted from the fourth Shahbazpur well] will be become useable after four months. A total of 40mmcfd gas will be required for the power plant. That volume will be produced from the third and fourth wells from the field. Gas has already been found in the third well.”
Abdul Halim, director of the well-drilling project, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Drilling of the well at 3,805 metres ended recently. However, we have found commercially viable gas reserves at a 2,920-metre depth. We will start formal extraction from the fourth well after PDB’s power plant starts working.”
In April 2012, the government signed a deal with Gazprom to drill 10 gas wells around the country, spending $193.55m, without floating any tender under the Power and Energy Quick Supply (special provision) Act.
Under the agreements, the Russian party was supposed to complete the drilling of the wells by the end of last year. But the company consumed an additional 11 months to drill the 10 wells.
On April 9 last year, the PDB signed an agreement with China Chengda Engineering Company Ltd to install a 225MW power plant at Bhola’s Borhanuddin, which is supposed to start supplying power to the national grid by 2015.
The Shahbazpur gas field was discovered in 1994 with an estimated recoverable reserve of 390 billion cubic feet. Over the last four years, a total of 9 billion cubic feet has been extracted from the first and the second wells.
The Shahbazpur gas field started supplying gas to the 33MW rental power plant in Bhola in 2010.
Bapex is currently producing and supplying 108mmcfd gas to the national grid from its six gas in Saldanadi, Fenchuganj, Shahbazpur, Semutung, Sundalpur and Srikail.