Bangladesh will award its offshore oil and gas blocks to the prospective bidders despite objections raised by neighbouring India and Myanmar, officials said.
"We will award our offshore gas blocks to the international oil companies (IOCs) that will come out successful on completion of evaluation," Professor M Tamim, special aide to chief adviser on energy issues, told the FE.
He said protest from neighbouring countries will not hamper awarding of the country's oil and gas blocks to the IOCs for exploration.
Prof. Tamim made this comment after the two neighbouring countries protested against the country's offshore bidding round just before awarding the gas blocks to the bid winners.
Myanmar has recently issued letters to a number of prospective bidders including Irish Tullow Oil and Chinese Longwoods Resources Ltd asking them to be cautious about signing PSCs on the bordering gas blocks.
The Indian government in a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently protested Bangladesh offshore bidding round saying the offshore blocks should not be awarded to the IOCs without resolving the issues relating to the international maritime boundary.
Bangladesh has almost completed evaluation of the latest offshore bidding that ended on May 7 last.
Seven IOCs including US oil giant ConocoPhillips, Australian Santos International, Chinese oil giant CNOOC, British Cairn Energy, Irish Tullow, Chinese-US joint venture Longwoods Resources Ltd submitted bids for 15 oil and gas blocks out of the total 28 in the Bay of Bengal.
Sources said both India and Myanmar did also make similar protest before opening up of the country's offshore bidding round in mid-February last.
Talking further on the issue Prof. Tamim, however, said the protests by two neighbouring countries have opened up an opportunity to resolve the dispute over maritime boundary.
"The dispute over maritime boundary among the neighbouring countries will be resolved in line with relevant international law and bilateral relationships," Tamim hoped.
He also said that like India and Myanmar, Bangladesh also protested launching of oil and gas explorations by the two countries in the Bay of Bengal in 2006 and expressed concern over overlapping of Bangladesh territory by them, he said.
Despite the protest both India and Myanmar moved ahead unilaterally awarding oil and gas blocks in the bordering areas.
"We, however, feel that the dispute over the maritime boundary will be resolved immediately through negotiations among the respective parties," Tamim said.
He also ruled out any possibility of the IOCs pulling out of the PSCs saying the issue is more or less known to all.
The IOCs will not face any problem out of it, as there are international instances of settling such disputes among the neighbouring countries through mutual understanding, he said.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provision is there to provide solution to such dispute among the neighbouring countries, he added.
The countries like Vietnam, China, Japan and Thailand have similar disputes and the global oil and gas giants are working in these blocks to explore hydrocarbon.
Russia and Japan have similar disputes over the right of oil and gas blocks, Tamim said.
Besides, in the model production-sharing contract of Bangladesh there is a provision for unitisation of gas blocks through discussion between the relevant parties if a structure extends into neighbouring territory, he added.
