Gas production resumed on Thursday from a suspended old well at Bakhrabad gas field of Comilla.
Authority from Bakhrabad gas field claimed that the well no-1 of the gas field was suspended from production for the last 4 years. The well resumed its production after 4 years on Thursday after a workover being conducted on the well no-1.
The well of the Bakhrabad Gas Field has now been contributing in the national grid by 15 million cubic feet gas per day and the gas pressure in the wellhead is about 1950 PSI (Pound-force per Square Inch).
Earlier, as per the suggestion of a technical committee of Petrobangla Bangladesh Gas Field Limited, a subsidiary of Petrobangla, took a workover project titled “Workover at 7 wells in Titas, Habiganj, Narsingdi, and Bakhrabad gas fields. The workover project began last February of this year.
The well no-1 of the Bakhrabad field was first drilled up to 2,838 meters beneath the ground in 1968 by the then Pakistan Shell Oil Ltd. Initially, ten independent gas layers (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, K, L) were found comprising of both primary and secondary categories in between the depths of 1,789 meters to 2,500 meters beneath the ground. At that drilling stage, only Drill Stem Test (DST) was done and after that, the well was temporarily shut down.
Production from the well no-1 began in 1981 after the first workover process and it was producing 33 mmcfd gas per day at that time. The gas extraction stopped from the well in 2015 due to a drop in pressure and the presence of excessive water.
Petrobangla formed a technical committee to conduct a feasibility study on the idle wells to bring back them in production. The committee suggested conducting workover in the well no-1 of Bakhrabad field up to a depth from 950 meters to 1,970 meters (dropper sand zone). According to the related sources, the dropper zone has an extractable reserve of 118 bcf gas. However, 80 per cent of the reserve is surely extractable from that zone, said the experts. Experts from a number of local and foreign companies’ including state-owned Bapex, Chinese CPL and also an Indian company were engaged in the workover process which made the more than 50 years old well back in production.
There is a possible increase in gas production by another 10 mmcfd from a sand dropper zone at the depth of 2000-2006 meter which was discovered during the work-over process.