Bangladesh Gas Field Company Limited has sought consent from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for a proposal to finance onshore exploration of four wells in the Titas gas field from an Asian Development Bank fund.
The government has already awarded the contract to China’s Sinopec International Petroleum Service Corporation for drilling wells by May this year.
Energy Division officials said the proposal will be placed in a committee meeting today to be presided over by Finance Minister AMA Muhith.
The official also said the Development Partner Fund will be treated as the government’s fund for the exploration project.
According to the proposal, the Chinese firm has already submitted performance guarantee of $5m to carry out the drilling job and committed to completing the operation at a cost of $52m or Tk4.05bn.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide the entire fund, the proposal said.
The four wells are: Titas 23, Titas 24, Titas 25 and Titas 26. Owned by the Bangladesh Gas Field Company Limited (BGFCL), all of them are located in the Brahmanbaria district.
All the four awarded gas wells are located some 100km off the capital and are part of Bangladesh’s second-largest producing gas field after the Chevron-operated Bibiyana.
This field is currently producing around 516 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) across 21 producing wells against an overall production capacity of 518 mmcfd.
In addition to drilling the four wells, Sinopec will also be responsible for third-party engineering services which include cementation, mud logging, wire-line logging, supplying explosives, detonator core analysis, drill-stem testing wire-line or slick-line operation, supply of drill bits and nozzles, supply of mud and completion chemicals.
BGFCL awarded the four onshore gas wells to Sinopec after a competitive bidding, barring Bapex from taking part, according to the proposal.
