Ptrobangla, the state-run corporation signed an initial deal on today with South Korean Posco Daewoo International Corporation for gas exploration in Deep Sea block-12 (DS-12) of Bay of Bengal.
The deal signing ceremony took place at the conference room of the Petro centre located at the city’s kawranbazar area. Md. Mahbub Sarwar, the director of Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for Petrobangla and Junggoo Junn, the New Venture Exploration Manager of Daewoo Corp. signed the deal on behalf of their respective organizations.
Energy secretary Nazimuddin Chowdhury, Petrobangla chairman Istiaque Ahmed, Additional Secretary of Power Division Md. Zakir Hossain and other high officials from the power division and Petrobangla directors were also present at the deal signing ceremony.
The Petrobangla official said that, the Korean company is getting the gas block the deep sea gas block 12 (DS-12) in the Bay of Bengal through an unsolicited process under the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act 2010. It means there was no open competitive bidding process in awarding the contract.
Earlier, Petrobangla invited Expressions of Interests (EOI) on September, 28 to explore and develop these two deep-sea blocks and one shallow sea block in the Bay of Bengal. Three international oil companies (IOC) have submitted their EOI to explore oil and gas resources in country’s deep-sea blocks titled DS-10 and DS-11 and shallow sea block SS-10.
The deep sea block 12 is located near the Thalin-1A gas exploration well in block AD-7 of Myanmar that the Korean resource developer succeeded in discovering gas reserves in February this year. As per settlement in the negotiation, Daewoo will first conduct a 2D seismic survey to start exploration. It did not agree to make any commitment to conduct a 3D survey.