Petrobangla has expressed its willingness to buy the assets of three gas fields operated by Chevron Corp. The State-owned company is now about to appoint an expert consultant to ease the complexity of the calculations regarding the buying decision.
Chairman of the state-run Petrobangla, Ishtiaque Ahmed said to Energybangla that, final decisions will be taken based on assessment reports on feasibility and prospect of these three fields. Petrobangla will consider a few things before buying the assets including its own technical and financial capability and ultimately the feasibility of this invest, said the chairman. No matter what, Petrobangla will follow the government’s directives regarding this matter, he added.
Chevron, the second-largest oil company in the United States and the world’s fourth-largest publicly traded oil company is also one of the largest foreign investors in Bangladesh’s energy sector. The company has been operating three gas fields in this country and solely responsible for about half of the country’s total gas production.
Chevron operates the natural gas fields in Bibiyana, Jalalabad and Moulavi Bazar. They currently sell all their production to Petrobangla under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC). These three fields collectively have an amount of 11 trillion cubic feet (tcf) stock of gas. Among these three Bibiyana has the largest stock of gas reserves beneath the ground; the estimated amount of the stock is 8 tcf where the 3.48 tcf is guaranteed. It’s estimated that the guaranteed stock of these three fields will come to an end within the next ten years.
Last year Chevron produced 720 million cubic feet of natural gas and 3,000 barrels of condensate from the fields of Bangladesh. According to this data Chevron, controlled fields produces more than half of the total production of this country. The Bibiyana field alone produces 40 percent of the total gas of this country.
Petrobangla sources informed that, the three fields operated by Chevron produced less amount of gas than that of the last year’s. Chevron has also declined its investment in these three fields by 19 percent in this year.
According to the sources from Petrobangla, the sate-run company has no experience in operating such large-scale and high-tech gas fields. Petrobangla has to consider hiring expert foreign professionals to handle those plants, sources confirmed.