13 gas wells to be drilled next fiscal

The government is eyeing to drill 13 natural gas wells, install two gas compression stations and construct gas transmission pipeline for evacuation of gas from the northeastern region to Dhaka, Chittagong and the southwestern region of the country in the coming fiscal year 2014-15.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division under the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources has also a plan to drill two exploration wells and four development wells, carry out 500-line kilometre two dimensional (2D) seismic survey and 450 square kilometre (sq km) three dimensional (3D) seismic surveys by state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex).
It has also planned to enhance domestic production of diesel, petrol and octane by fractionating condensate from different gas fields, construct 13 petroleum storage tanks by state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to contain 65,500 tonnes of petroleum products and produce 1.10 million tonnes of high quality bituminous coal from state-owned Barapukuria coalmine, the lone producing coalmine of the country.
Under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the next FY 2015, the government has also planned to build a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to facilitate import of LNG by June 2015.
The country is set to sign an initial agreement with the US consortium Astra Oil and Excelerate to build a floating LNG terminal at Moheshkhali island in the Bay of Bengal with a capacity to handle 5 million tonnes per year of LNG, re-gasification capacity of at least 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), and berthing and mooring facilities for LNG ships with a capacity of 138,000-260,000 cubic metres.
The government will also continue search for new gas field discovery and reassess the reserve of the already discovered gas fields to enhance natural gas reserve, as per the ADP for the next FY 2015.
Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith earmarked Tk 22.23 billion to carry out development works in oil and gas sector in next FY 2015, up 16.44 per cent from the realised allocation of the previous year.
The country's oil and gas requirement is mounting keeping pace with the growth in economic activity, which is growing at an average rate of 6.0 per cent since 2003.
The country is fully dependent on domestic natural gas supplies for meeting local demand and average natural gas production hovers around 2,340 mmcfd.
It is almost entirely dependent on imports to meet demand of petroleum products.
The country's average import of crude and refined oil products hovered around 5.0 million tonnes in the past couple of years.