Ruling on maritime boundarydisputes likely in mid-2012

---

Nizam Ahmed Foreign ministry officials are hopeful about getting a ruling from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) of the UN on the Bangladesh's maritime boundary dispute with Myanmar and India by the middle of the next year. The ruling on the dispute with Myanmar will precede the ruling on a similar row with India, as Bangladesh submitted its stance to the ITLOS last month claiming its rights on the offshore blocks disputed by the two neighbours, the officials said. Experts believe Bangladesh has a big possibility of striking hydrocarbon in its unexplored off-shore blocks. They said Myanmar and India have already struck gas in their respective patches in the Bay of Bengal adjacent to the blocks under Bangladesh territorial waters. "Most of the 28 offshore blocks are disputed, and none of the countries involved can go for exploration until the disputes are settled," Muhammad Imaduddin, director of Petrobangla told the FE. Until the disputes are settled, no country will be allowed to explore hydrocarbon the the disputed blocks, he said. However exploration to be conducted by the US oil giant, ConocoPhillips at the deep-sea blocks no. 10 and 11 and the drilling by Australian firm Santos at block 16 would not be affected as those are far away from the disputed patches in the Bay. Director Imaduddin who looks after contracts with foreign firms, however, could not give the exact number of disputed blocks immediately without seeing records of Petrobangla, the hydrocarbon exploration wing under the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources. The foreign ministry officials are hopeful about getting ITLOS ruling in in favour of Bangladesh, which needed exploration as early as possible to meet its huge energy deficit. Bangladesh has been running short of 500 million cubic feet (mmcft) of gas against requirement of 2.5 billion cubic feet. The shortage keeps several gas-fired power plants out of generation, leading to at least 1,500 mega watt deficit during the peak-hours, officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board said. "The tribunal heard a series of arguments which included numerous technical points, from both the sides in September and duly adjourned the session to draw rulings on the disputes," a senior official of the foreign ministry told the FE. For Bangladesh the ruling is most crucial as it needs new sources of natural gas to meet growing domestic demand mainly to generate electricity and produce fertilizer, the official said. Bangladesh has up to 15 trillion cubic feet (tcf) gas, Prof. Mohammad Hussain Mansur, chairman of Petrobangla told a news conference last month. However Enamul Haque, state minister for power, energy and mineral resources told parliament recently that there was 10.8 tcf extractable gas in the on-shore gas fields. To meet the electricity crunch authorities have been forced to offer more than 40 deals to local and foreign firms to generate power form costly oil-fired plants, leading to a gross mismatch between power procurement and selling rates. Though not suffering from gas shortages, Myanmar is keen to develop new resources, diplomatic sources said. Bangladesh sent Navy frigates to a disputed patch in 2008 when Myanmar engaged a South Korean exploration firm to explore gas in the bay defying warning. In September a new survey into the existing national gas field of Rashidpur in Sylhet vent high hopes of finding an additional 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. It was exciting discovery explored by Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex), the exploration wing of Petrobangla, officials said. This field already had a proven gas reserve of 2 tcf in its western part.