Energy Bangla

The state-run petroleum exploration company BAPEX for the first time ever has participated in an international tender to drill two gas wells at Bangora field in block 9 in Comilla which is now operated by Singapore-based company KrisEnergy.
krisEnergy is likely to award the tender to its preferred bidder out of four-five bidders by early September as it was planning to begin the drilling operation in October this year, officials said.
BAPEX managing director Md Atiquzzaman on Sunday told that they had submitted the bid.
‘At least, it will help us to achieve confidence in participating in an international tender although it is for a job within Bangladesh territory,’ he said.
In 2001, the then government signed production sharing contract with a joint-venture company where three foreign companies led by Tullow Bangladesh Limited owned 90 per cent share of the company.
BAPEX holds a 10 per cent carried interest in the JV company.
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.
Tullow, the operator of the block, discovered Bangora gas field in 2004 with a reserve of about 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, they said.
A section of experts alleged that the Block 9 was one of the four most potential onshore blocks which were ‘gifted’ to the international oil companies for oil and gas exploration depriving BAPEX.
Certain quarters in the government believed that BAPEX had no skill and resources to conduct oil and gas exploration and on that ground they awarded a number of contracts to different foreign companies.
However, BAPEX now plans to use its own rig—Bijoy 2010—to drill the two wells at Bangora field if it wins the bid, officials said.
They said that the rig would be relocated from Kailashtila gas field.