A joint-venture firm of Australia's Santos and Singaporean company KrisEnergy has completed two-dimensional (2D) seismic survey in the shallow-water hydrocarbon block SS-11 in the Bay of Bengal as the maiden operator in the country's maritime territory at present.
Company-insiders said France-based geosciences company CGG Services SA completed a 3,146-kilomtre 2D seismic acquisition programme offshore Bangladesh within 22 days with the Binh Minh 2 vessel.
Block SS-11 covers an area of 4,475sqkm in the Bay over the Bengal Fan.
The majority portion of the block lies in shallow waters of up to 200 metres.
KrisEnergy's Director, exploration and production, Chris Gibson-Robinson, gave his observations on the hydrocarbon block in an instant reaction Thursday.
"The existing 2D data sets were acquired in the mid-1970s and this programme will provide higher-resolution data to confirm existing prospects and leads and assess the overall prospect of the block," he said.
"It will also help us determine potential locations for a planned 3D seismic programme, to which we are committed under the work- programme obligations," he said in his media statement.
Santos Sangu Field Ltd is the operator of SS-11 with 45 per cent stake, KrisEnergy (Asia) Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the KrisEnergy group of companies, holds 45 per cent stake and Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex) has a 10 per cent working interest.
The shallow-water block is highly potential, as it is close to Myanmar's territorial waters where the neighbouring country discovered huge natural gas reserves.
Under the agreement, Santos-Kris JV has committed to drilling an exploration well, conduct 1,876-line-kilometre 2D seismic survey and 300sqkm 3D survey, offering a bank guarantee of US$15 million, for the initial five years of exploration.
The JV bidder would be required to invest around US$ 30-32 million to carry out its work plan under the production-sharing contract (PSC) during the initial years.
Its contract period for exploration will be eight years in total. The contractor will be allowed to operate and sell oil and gas for 20 years from an oil-field and 25 years from a gas-field.
Under the deal, the price of gas in Bangladesh is pegged to that of high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) on the international market, while oil prices are to be determined as a fair market value agreed on by the companies and the state-owned Petrobangla.
The PSC also allows the JV firm the right to full repatriation of profit, and non-payment of any signature bonus or royalty on equipment and machinery imported for exploration, development and production.
Companies will also have 100 per cent cost recovery.
The contractor can also sell gas directly to third parties, subject to Petrobangla's right of first refusal.
But hydrocarbons produced from the shallow-water blocks must be sold on the domestic market, as their export is prohibited under the PSC terms.
Currently, Bangladesh is entirely dependent on onshore fields for natural gas output, with current production hovering around 2,460 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) compared with the demand for more than 3,000mmcfd.
Australian oil and gas exploration company Santos was the lone operator of the country's lone operational offshore Sangu-11 well in the Bay of Bengal, which was shut permanently on October 1, 2013.
KrisEnergy, which purchased UK-based Tullow Oil's stake at $42.35 million last year, is the operator of onshore block-9.
This company has 30 per cent stake in the block, where Canadian Niko Resources has 60 per cent and Bapex has 10 per cent stake.
The block includes the Bangora gas-producing facility and the Lalmai discovery. The Bangora gas-field is currently producing around 111mmcfd, according to Petrobangla data.
azizjst@yahoo.com
Aussie-S\\\'porean JV first to complete 2D survey
M Azizur Rahman | Published: January 24, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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