& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Petrobangla refutes Unocal's compensation payment claim

SHARIER KHAN
Petrobangla officials have rejected the claim by Unocal Bangladesh's chief Scott A Barber that the company has 'settled' through a supplementary agreement the issue of compensation for damage of a gas reserve in the Magurchhara explosion.
"Nowhere in the Supplementary Agreement signed in 1998, it is mentioned that the agreement or any clause of the agreement was made to compensate the gas loss in Magurchhara," a high official of Petrobangla noted.
"The state minister (for energy) is unwilling to submit Petrobangla's gas damage compensation claim to Unocal. It seems that nothing had happened in Magurchhara," commented a top official.
Another official observed that Unocal was unwilling to pay any amount of compensation and it has the support of a section in the government. Petrobangla was about to file a compensation claim with Unocal for damaging Magurchhara gas field.
"If Unocal finds the claim irrational, why is it afraid of receiving Petrobangla's letter on the issue?" the official asked. "The claims were not based on imagination. There was an official probe committee report that included even the opinion of an Occidental expert."
This is the second time Unocal has made such a claim. The first time the company came up with such a strange claim in 2000 through a printed document in which it said it 'paid' Bangladesh Taka 332.32 crore as compensation for the blowout. When Petrobangla warned Unocal not to give
such fictitious figures, the company went silent about it.
This time, as Petrobangla had processed an official letter to claim Taka 3900 crore as compensation for damaging a gas structure in Magurchhara having an estimated 245 billion cubic feet (BCF) of gas, the company went into an offensive.
Firstly, when Petrobangla was about to deliver the letter to Unocal, it lobbied with the state minister for energy so that it is not delivered. The state minister then asked Petrobangla to stop the process on the plea of further scrutinising the legal sides of the claims. The letter was already approved twice by the energy ministry and twice by the Petrobangla Board.
Then on Sunday, Scott A Barber told the UNB, "The supplementary agreement awarded the Petrobangla additional five per cent gas discovered by us in block number 14."
He also said that Unocal had settled all legitimate claims and only environmental damage claim remained pending as the environment ministry took 18 months to agree to appoint a third party internationally recognised expert to assess the damage.
The Unocal chief also termed the blowout as a mere accident. "We were sorry then and we are sorry now. But the claim that 245 BCF gas was burnt is totally unrealistic," UNB quoted Barber as saying.
But facts say different things.
Unocal's predecessor Occidental had begun the drilling in Magurchhara on June 2, 1997. That was its first drilling since it signed a production sharing contact (PSC) on January 11, 1995. This PSC was naturally terminated on January 11, 1998 for failure to fulfil the minimum work commitment.
Following the blowout, a four-member probe committee which included an expert of Occidental looked for the cause of the devastating blowout that burnt all the gas in that structure for three months. The committee found Occidental's negligent operation and faulty gas well design as the main causes of the accident.
The fire of the blowout was so intense that it could be seen even from Sylhet.
But soon after the probe committee report was submitted, a section in the government backed the company to get away with its fault. The report was kept strictly shelved also from those who investigated and even the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy.
After the Occidental PSC was terminated, the US company lobbied and persuaded the government to give the PSC an extension--though there was no such contrac-
tual provision.
After eight months, the government 'extended' the contract adding some new clauses through a Supplementary Agreement. Under hese new clauses, Petrobangla gets five per cent more share of gas if it is found in the same geological structure of Magurchhara. These clauses were added as a bonus to Petrobangla for allowing Occidental to work in the same area even after its failure to fulfil the contract.
A similar scenario prevailed as regards the environmental damage claim. When the government was delaying the signing of the Supplementary Agreement, the environment ministry claimed an environmental damage compensation of Taka 612 crore. At one stage, Occidental agreed to pay the compensation if a third party expert assessed the damage.
But later, the government did not go ahead with the environmental damage claims or the probe committee report for mysterious reasons.
When Unocal took over Occidental's concerns, it automatically inherited the latter's liabilities. The government did not do anything
to make Occidental accountable about Magurchhara when it left the country.
Meanwhile Petrobangla made no compensation claim for gas damage as the probe committee report on Magurchhara was given a 'classified' status by the then energy secretary Toufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury.
Whether Petrobangla demanded any compensation or not, Unocal itself generated controversy by making an arbitrary claim that till August 31, 2000, it paid a total of Taka 332.32 crore as compensation for the Magurchhara blowout.
Upon a clarification sought by Petrobangla, Unocal then said a major chunk of this 'compensation' was supposedly paid through the supplementary agreement which said that an additional five per cent share would be given to Petrobangla if gas was discovered in the same geological structure of Magurchhara.
The matter was closed after exchange of a couple of letters in which Petrobangla asked Unocal to refrain from making any fictitious claims as regards compensation.