ONGC Videsh Ltd and Petrobangla signed two Production Sharing Contracts for exploration and production of oil and gas in two shallow water blocks SS-04 and SS-09 on 17th February 2014 at a ceremony held at Petrobangla.This was following the offshore bidding round-2012 announced by the Government of Bangladesh in 2012 in which OVL won the contracts for the two blocks. OVL is a subsidiary of ONGC ltd, the largest state owned company in India, and a Fortune 500 company.
Finance minister AMA Muhith, prime minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury, state minister for power and energy Nasrul Hamid Bipu, energy division secretary Md Mozammel Haque Khan and Petrobangla chairman Hossain Monsur and Indian high commissioner Pankaj Saran attended the contract signing ceremony with other officials from the both side at Petrocentre in Dhaka.
According to the contract, Petrobangla, the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources Corporation, will get the share of natural gas between 27 per cent and 38.25 per cent while the share of condensate between 31.5 per cent and 40 per cent. The contractor, under Model Production Sharing Contract 2012, will have the rest of the produces of the two shallow sea blocks with at total area of about 14,300 squire kilometres. ONGC Videsh managing director DK Sarraf said that the joint-venture would ‘soon’ start exploration activities in the awarded blocks. Mozammel said that the government would sign two more contracts in next week with the US oil company ConocoPhillips and a joint-venture Santos-Krisenergy for oil and gas exploration in shallow sea blocks 7 and 11 respectively.