Sunetra gas field exploration likely to be delayed

New Age | Newspaper


Manjurul Ahsan

The start of the drilling of an exploration well in the Sunetra gas field is likely to be delayed until at least the end of the year as the state-run petroleum exploration and extraction company Bapex and its parent organisation Petrobangla have failed to finalise a development project proposal.

According to experts working within Bapex and Petrobangla, the Sunetra structure which is located in Sunamganj and Netrakona could become the biggest exploration success of the state-run corporation.

Although Bapex had given the project its highest priority and has planned to drill an exploration well by April, this will not happen until December at the earliest. The discovery of the gas field was announced in August 2010.

An energy division official told New Age that it would take more than a year from now before any fully-fledged operation to drill an exploration well takes place.

Officials say that although both Bapex and Petrobangla have been involved in exchanging letters in relation to the development project proposal and have visited the gas field, little work has actually been done.

Bapex sent its first project proposal to Petrobangla in September 2010 setting out an intention to drill an exploration well by March-April 2011 at a cost of Tk 77.32 crore.

Following feedback from Petrobangla, Bapex sent another proposal on October 12, 2010 suggesting the drilling of at least three more development wells along with the exploration well at a cost of Tk 277.32 crore.

Petrobangla and Bapex officials then spent about a month on discussions before deciding that it should propose that the project should be funded by the government with the gas development fund created from increases in the gas bill collected by gas distribution agencies from consumers.

The Bapex managing director told New Age that Bapex would use its own funds to conduct the project implementation with financial adjustments being made subsequently. Petrobangla, however, has not yet approved the proposal.

The Petrobangla chairman, Hossain Monsur, on Monday told New Age that they would be able to drill one exploration well by the end of the year if land acquisition, the construction of a drill pad and other infrastructures, increasing the capacity of an 8 km connecting road and mobilisation of rig were conducted properly.

He said that the geological structure identified through two-dimensional seismic surveys was very suggestive of a gas field with a reserve of two to three trillion cubic feet.

Mansur, who is also a geologist, told New Age that in the past week he had visited the project area and decided that the place where drilling for an exploration well should take place needed to be changed.

In the presence of local public representatives, they also talked with the owners of the five to six acres of land where the drilling will take place.

Both the parties agreed that Bapex would pay a yearly rent of Tk 60,000 for each acre of land. If gas was found, Bapex would then buy the land at Tk 7 lakh an acre, it was agreed.

Petrobangla and BAPEX officials expressed their fear that the government would give away the field to an international oil company on the pretext that the state-run agencies had failed and there was lack of money to conduct such operations.

At a conference at the Petrobangla office on August 9, 2010 Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, the prime minister’s energy adviser, said that the state-run petroleum exploration and extraction agencies might agree a joint-venture agreement with IOCs in prospective areas such as Netrakona.

Many experts and energy sector officials had a different view arguing that the Sunetra gas field had a potential to supply the country with a huge amount of gas for a long time at a lower price if exploration and extraction was undertaken by government agencies.