Polish firm pulls out of 'fast-track' gas exploration

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M Azizur Rahman
The government's 'fast-track' gas exploration programme to drill state-owned gas wells by foreign firms has finally failed to see light as the bid winner Polish firm has pulled out of the project work, a top government official said.
"Polish Poszukiwania Nastyi Gazu Krakow has informed us of its inability to implement the project work saying that the gas fields under the scheme were 'leaking' gas," Petrobangla Chairman Hussain Monsur told the FE Saturday.
This is unfortunate, said the Petrobangla chief.
The matter of gas seepage in some gas fields under the project were known to all concerned, said Monsur.
Officials said pulling out from the fast-track programme by Krakow is a big blow to the government that initiated the programme immediately after taking office over two years ago to augment gas output across the country.
It would aggravate the country's energy crunch further, they said.
State-owned Petrobangla had sought expressions of interest for drilling in state-owned gas fields by foreign firms in September 2009.
Twenty-five global firms from the US, the UK, Australia, Russia, Canada, France, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, Oman and India submitted expression of interest (EoI) for conducting fast-track gas exploration.
The selection of the bid winner took a long time because of bureaucratic complexities, a Petrobangla official said.
The Polish firm was selected to develop and produce natural gas from at least six gas wells in under-explored hydrocarbon-rich fields to boost output in the wake of the country's acute energy crisis.
After developing wells for gas production Krakow was supposed to hand over the wells back to the state-owned companies.
The gas wells planned to be drilled are located under the jurisdiction of Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Ltd (BGFCL) and Sylhet Gas Fields Company Ltd (SGFCL).
Drilling of six onshore wells and carrying out 3,100-line kilometres seismic survey in state-owned gas fields have been planned under the programme to ensure gas output from the new wells by 2012 next.
Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex) had suggested hiring of foreign companies as, it said, its age-old rigs were booked until December 2011 and capable of conducting survey of only 300-line km per year.
Currently Petrobangla's subsidiary BGFCL and the SGFCL have five operating gas fields each but their gas output is around 730 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) and 165 mmcfd respectively.
Petrobangla had expected gas output of around 150 mmcfd after drilling of gas wells by Krakow.
Severe capacity constraint of the state-owned lone gas exploration and development company, Bapex, had pushed the government to initiate the project two years ago.
The 'fast track' programme was taken in the wake of severe energy crunch in the country as gas production has been hovering around 1980 mmcfd against the daily demand for around 2,500 mmcfd.
The unprecedented gas supply shortfall forced Petrobangla to suspend gas supplies to new industries.
It also suspended operation of several gas guzzling fertiliser factories and stopped operation of a number of power plants with a total generation capacity of around 600 megawatts.
The country needs new energy sources, and unless new gas fields are discovered, the supply of gas will start diminishing from 2011.
Petrobangla forecasts that the country's current gas reserves will run out by 2014-2015 at current consumption rates.