Petrobangla is gearing up to invite tenders for new oil and gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal by proposing a multi-plan 2D seismic survey of the country’s underwater hydrocarbon resources.
“We have already submitted a proposal to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) seeking permission to appoint an international maritime seismic survey firm to perform a 2D survey,” a director of Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation, widely known as Petrobangla, said.
In order to issue special directions to prepare the plan of action, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called a high-level meeting at her office on August 20.
“We have received a proposal from Petrobangla. Now we are working on it. We hope we shall be able to invite tenders by December to appoint a survey company,” EMRD Secretary Md Abu Bakar Siddique told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“The international oil companies will be interested if we complete a 2D seismic survey before inviting tenders for the new blocks,” he said.
“There are companies that carry out survey and sell the data directly to the international oil firms. We won’t have any expenses because the work will be done with their own investment. Moreover, Petrobangla will share in the profits for selling data,” he said.
“If we get the survey report within a year then we will go for final offshore bidding, most likely from 2016, to explore offshore oil and gas at the new blocks in the Bay of Bengal,” he added.
This will be the first survey of its kind in the country, as the importance of seismic surveys came into the spotlight following the settlement of maritime boundary delimitation disputes with Myanmar and India.
After a three year pause, the government plans to formulate a fresh production sharing contract (PSC) model to award offshore hydrocarbon blocks in the Bay of Bengal.
The previous four rounds were floated in 2012, 2008, 1993 and 1974.
In 2011, a PSC was signed between ConocoPhillips and Petrobangla to explore two offshore blocks. That was the country’s first ever deep-water hydrocarbon hunt.
Later, on February 17, 2014 Bangladesh signed two deals with India’s state-owned ONGC Videsh Limited and Oil India Limited to commence oil and gas explorations in two offshore shallow blocks, block 4 and block 9, in the Bay of Bengal.
A month later, on March 12, 2014 Bangladesh signed a production sharing contract with a joint venture of Australia-based Santos and Singapore-based Kris Energy to start oil and gas exploration in offshore shallow block 11 in the Bay of Bengal.
Bangladesh now has 23 hydrocarbon blocks in the bay.
The settlement of the maritime border disputes awarded Bangladesh a territorial sea covering 118,000 square kilometres and an exclusive economic zone extending to 200 nautical miles.
This gives Bangladesh an opportunity to explore and utilise marine resources for economic development.
