EMRD seeks opinion on its draft PSC

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M Azizur Rahman
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) has sought opinion from the concerned ministries on economic, legal and tax related issues of the draft production sharing contract (PSC) for offshore hydrocarbon exploration in the Bay of Bengal.
"We have requested the ministries of finance, commerce, law and the National Board of Revenue (NBR) last week to send their opinion on the draft PSC on offshore exploration," a top EMRD official told the FE.
He said the ministries have also been requested to inform the EMRD about their objections, if any, on the model PSC and the newly created offshore gas blocks soon to help expedite the process for launching the new offshore bidding round.
The clearance along with comments and recommendations from the ministries are crucial as the government has planned to float international tender for hydrocarbon exploration covering the country's entire offshore territory of 200 nautical miles or about 106,000 square kilometres from its continental coasts, sources from the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) said.
The EMRD finalised the model PSCs, new offshore gas blocks and their sizes following an inter-ministerial meeting last year. However, the division recently decided to modify the PSC to entice international oil companies (IOCs) to the upcoming offshore bidding round 2007.
The EMRD dotted a total of 27 new offshore gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal for hydrocarbon exploration under the third round bidding.
Of the new gas blocks 20 are created in the deep-sea while the remaining seven are in shallow water in the Bay.
The acreages of the shallow water offshore gas blocks will be between 5,000 square kilometres and 5,500 square kilometres each, while for deep-sea gas blocks the acreages are 3,300 square kilometres each.
These newly created offshore gas blocks have been divided in to two categories - 'A' type and 'B' type.
A total of 20 gas blocks belong to 'A' category is located from the seashore to 20 degree north latitude into the Bay of Bengal.
While, the 'B' category consists of seven deeper offshore gas blocks that are located from 20-degree north latitude to 18-degree north latitude in the Bay, a senior Petrobangla official said.