Gas reserves drying up
FROM PAGE 1
Prof Shamsul Alam said the government has been more focused on importing liquified natural gas (LNG) than on investing in exploration.
“It seems we don’t want to explore our gas reserves. It seems we want to overcome our gas crisis by importing LNG at high prices,” he said.
“For instance, well number 9 of the Rashidpur gas field [in Habiganj] has been ready for extraction since 2016, but it is yet to go into operation.”
Criticising the government for not extracting at all from Bhola and Chhatak East gas fields, Shamsul said the current government has “no achievement in exploration. We are reaping the fruits of explorations of 1996”.
Prof Badrul Imam, former teacher of geology at Dhaka University, said production at every gas field starts to decline after hitting the peak. “For most of the fields, we are going through that period when production goes down…”
A lot of gas is yet to be discovered, he added.
“The authorities drilled only 28 exploratory wells in the last 20 years, which is a ridiculously small number for a country with high hydrocarbon potential.
“We hit gas in every three wells drilled when the global average is five. We have at least 40 abandoned wells. If we can invest in overhauling them, we can produce gas and save money by not importing LNG.”
He said the government should take up a priority project in this regard.
Two international surveys found 32 TCF and 42 TCF gas under the plains of Bangladesh, he said, adding that to find those reserves, the government needs to explore aggressively.
“Our tendency is to look for things that we can find easily. We are not conducting the second phase exploration,” he added.
Contacted, Nasrul Hamid, state minister for power, energy and mineral resources, said exploration is a regular job of Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd of Petrobangla.
“We have a proper plan on drilling wells.”
On the claim that the government prefers import to exploration, he said, “We could ask those making such comments to get involved in the drilling process, if needed.
“If we drill today, we will not get gas tomorrow. It will take time. But our national demand for gas is galloping. To meet the growing demand, we are left with no other option but to import LNG.”
OFFSHORE EXPLORATION
No comprehensive programme for offshore exploration had been taken up since such exploration began in 1974, experts pointed out.
The Daily Star found that the authorities failed to have a multi-client survey done even though Petrobangla initiated the process in 2015.
Officials and experts said the multi-client survey is a key study for finding reservoirs.
In 2015, Petrobangla floated a tender for conducting the multi-client survey but the energy ministry cancelled it.
A fresh tender was floated the next year.
On both occasions, a joint consortium of Norway’s TGS and the USA’s Schlumberger won.
The work order, however, was issued three years later.
The survey was supposed to start in November last year, but it had not.
Prime Minister’s Energy Adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury recently claimed that deep-sea exploration would not be possible as the world was moving away from fossil fuels.
But experts said the authorities were just not following the proper procedures.
“It’s like a conspiracy against the country. We started the procedure in 2014-15, but why has the job not been done yet?” said Prof Badrul.
Nasrul Hamid said, “We need at least another 10 years to know how much gas there is under the sea.”