New gas reserve has been found in an exploration well at Rupganj of Narayanganj, state-run Petrobangla’s exploration wing Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (Bapex) MD MA Baki has said.
This is the 26th discovered gas field of the country, he added.
“The drilling work of the well has recently been completed. There is gas in two zones (lower and upper) of the well area,” Baki said.
“The well’s drilling ended after 3,615 metres. The ‘login’ and ‘casing’ [methods to determine gas reserve] process has recently ended in the lower zone, where the gas was found between 3,591 and 3,593 meter; while gas was also detected between 3,326 and 3,332 meter. Then we confirmed that possibility of a gas reserve had surfaced during the login process,” he said.
“We are now able to explore gas in 4,700 PSIG [pressure per square inch gas] in the lower zone. But exploring gas from the zone will not be commercially viable.
“Now, we will conduct ‘drilling steam test’ [DST] at the well to confirm the gas reserve in the upper zone,” he said, adding: “A drilling steam test is to find out how much recoverable gas the reserve has and how much it will produce every day.”
He said the authorities were yet to confirm how much gas there could be in the reserve.
The DST was said to continue for two more days before any conclusive results were on hand, the Bapex MD said.
“If the reserve is proven to be commercially viable, we will be able to add gas from this well every day,” he added.
Once the gas reserve was confirmed, the authorities plan to set up a 6km-long gas transmission line to feed it to the national grid, Baki said, adding that there were also plans to dig several development wells at the site.
The cost of digging the experimental well, under the Rupganj Oil/Gas Exploration Well Digging Project was estimated at Tk97 crore.
