Bangladesh鈥檚 offshore is replete with potential hydrocarbon reservoirs, revealed a promotional seminar held on Bangladesh鈥檚 offshore bidding opened on March 11 to attract foreign investors in exploring the country鈥檚 maritime area.
Power, energy and mineral resources state minister Nasrul Hamid said that seven international companies already bought bidding documents and he expected to award the offshore exploration work by next year.
The minister, however, did not disclose names of the seven companies.
Petrobangla confirmed the promotional seminar was attended by nine companies鈥擴S-based oil companies Exxonmobil and Chevron, Japan-based oil companies Inpex Corporation and Jogmec, Chinese oil company Cnooc, Italian oil company ENI, and Singapore-based oil company KrisEnergy, Malaysian Petronas and Indian ONGC.
The seminar opened with two keynote presentations, including the one presented by Elisabeth Gillbard, senior geologist, UK-based TGS, a global provider of energy data and intelligence, which has conducted 12,932 line kilometres multi-client 2D seismic survey offshore Bangladesh.聽
Elisabeth said the submarine Bengal fan is the largest on earth and the least explored in the world.
The term submarine fan refers to accumulation of land-derived sediment on the deep seafloor. Submarine fans are globally known as potential hydrocarbon areas with abundant sand units forming potential hydrocarbon reservoirs. The Bengal fan is 3,000km long and 1,430km in width with a sediment thickness of 16.5km.
Elisabeth said that they spotted classic hydrocarbon reservoir targets, some as massive as 10km in width, constituting perfect traps for holding hydrocarbons.聽
She said that the Bengal fan was very similar to the Mississippi fan and Nile Delta where massive gas discoveries have been made. She said that signs of potential great hydrocarbon reservoir were all over the Bengal fan parts of which existed since 7 million years ago.
Myanmar discovered big gas fields close to Bangladesh, she said, adding that there are clear signs of gas presence on Bangladesh side as well.
鈥榃orld scale discovery is possible,鈥� said Elisabeth as she concluded her presentation in which she called some sand structures as 鈥榯extbook channel with great reservoir potentials.鈥�
A total of 24 offshore blocks are open for bidding, including nine shallow blocks. The shallow blocks are 3鈥�200 metres deep, while the deep sea blocks are 201m鈥�2,000m deep.
The bidding will close on September 9.
The promotional seminar started with the presentation of the Production Sharing Contract under which the bidding is being held.
The PSC offers 75 per cent cost recovery. The price will be 10 per cent of Brent crude oil, meaning that the earlier provision of any cap on the price is no longer there.
Companies will not have to pay taxes and have been exempted from paying VAT and other relevant charges.
The power, energy and mineral resources affairs adviser to the prime minister Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury was optimistic about attracting the international oil companies as he said the new PSC increased opportunities of profits for them.
鈥榃e are taking the middle path to attract investment on offshore exploration so that both the country and investors benefit,鈥� he said.
Bangladesh has so far held seven biddings since 1974 for gas and oil exploration, with the highest number of foreign companies entering production sharing contracts in 1974.
Bangladesh has drilled 97 wells over the past century, finding gas in 29 wells. Bangladesh鈥檚 current production capacity is about 2,100mmcfd against a demand of about 5,000mmcfd.
After a prolonged period of inactivity over exploration, the government passed the 2023 PSC in the election year, months before it assumed power for the fourth straight term.
Despite Bangladesh reportedly sitting on a huge gas reserve being the world鈥檚 largest delta, the government spent more money on gas imports rather than investing in the exploration or building the capacity of Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited.
American oil giant ExxonMobil expressed its interest in exploration in Bangladesh in the election year.
An enormous gas exploration potential opened up between 2012 and 2014 after Bangladesh won over 20,000sqkm in the Bay of Bengal following the settlement of maritime disputes with India and Myanmar.
Immediately after losing its maritime dispute with Bangladesh, Myanmar awarded 20 offshore blocks, mostly in the Rakhine basin off the Arakan coast, south of Teknaf, to international oil companies by 2014.
Of 26 open offshore blocks, Bangladesh has PSC for two shallow sea blocks鈥� blocks SS-04 and SS-09, which ONGC Videsh Ltd and Oil India Ltd are jointly exploring.
The South Korean Posco International exited from block DS-12 in 2020 seeking a gas price hike.
Before exiting, Posco carried out a two-dimensional, or 2D, seismic survey up to around 3,580 kilometres, double the distance it committed for the survey, detecting half a dozen potential gas spots.
ConocoPhillips got out of the PSC signed under the 2008 bidding after completing a survey of 5,750km in the deep sea blocks DS-10 and DS-11.
US oil giant Chevron has three onshore blocks鈥�12, 13 and 14鈥攚hile Singapore鈥檚 KrisEnergy has been running production from the onshore block 9.
