Energy Bangla

State-run petroleum exploration company BAPEX on Wednesday won an international tender to drill two gas production wells at Bangora field operated by Singapore-based KrisEnergy under a Production Sharing Contract.
Only three months ago, the government, however, engaged Russina Gazprom to drill a gas well at BAPEX owned Srikail field, apparently in the interest of a vested quarter in the government, officials said.
Gazprom would drill the well at Srikail field by another Russain firm Ariel Corporation costing BAPEX Tk 250 crore, more than three times higher the cost BAPEX offered to do the same job at its own field.
In the tender floated by KrisEnergy to drill two gas wells at Bangora, BAPEX beat Ariel Corporation and two other Chinese firms, the officials said.
‘Today we received the Letter of Intent from KrisEnergy as it had selected BAPEX out of four bidders to drill two gas production wells at Bangora field and to provide some other relevant services,’ BAPEX managing director Md Atiquzzaman told on Wednesday.
‘It is the first international tender where BAPEX had ever participated and won as well,’ he said.
KrisEnergy plans to complete the project for drilling two production wells at Bangora field towards the end of 2015. Now it supplies nearly 110 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from four wells at the field.
In February, KrisEnergy floated the international tender for the task and primarily shortlisted 10 companies of which BAPEX was the lone local company. Finally it shortened the list further to four, officials said.
BAPEX now plans to use its own rig — Bijoy 2010 — to drill the two wells at Bangora field. The rig would be relocated from Kailashtila gas field, they said.
Initially, BAPEX, however, planned to use Bijoy 2010 to drill a gas well at its Srikail field until it
had received an order issued on May 7 from energy division to abandon the project with an estimated cost of approximately Tk 65 crore.
Being instructed by the prime minister’s office, energy division on May 7 also asked BAPEX to allocate the project in favour of Gazprom at the cost of Tk 200 crore, which was later increased to Tk 250 crore.
In 2001, the then government signed production sharing contract with a joint-venture company led by Irish company Tullow for oil and gas exploration in hydrocarbon block 9.
In 2012, Tullow sold out its stakes in Bangladesh including that in the block 9 to KrisEnergy.
In a government allocated area near Bangora gas field, BAPEX alone discovered Srikail gas field in 2004, a few months before Tullow discovered Bangora, official data shows.
But BAPEX failed to extract gas due to technical glitches and was denied by the government to drill a second well there until 2012, officials said.
BAPEX now produces nearly 40 million cubic feet of gas a day from two wells of Srikail field.