US firm to help BGFCL quantify gas reserves

FE ReportbrThe state-owned Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Ltd (BGFCL) has recently signed a contract with the Houston-based Geotrace Data Integration Services Ltd to measure the remaining gas reserve in its operational gas fields, officials said.brThe Geotrace will provide its Tigress three-dimensional (3D) interpretation software to the BGFCL to help quantify the gas reserves in its decades old gas fields that account for 40 percent of the country's gas production.brThe BGFCL gas fields - Titas, Bakhrabad, Habiganj, Narsingdi and Meghna - were discovered during 1960s and currently producing around 708 million cubic feet gas per day (mmcfd).brAfter signing the contract the Geotrace managing director David Sullivan said Bangladesh should be able to utilise its hydrocarbon reserves better than ever before, supplying vital power to its 150 million citizens.brThe energy ministry recently decided to conduct extensive seismic surveys in five of the largest state-owned old but operational gas fields including those of the BGFCL expecting the reserves to be much higher than the initial estimations.brThey said based on their initial reserve estimation these fields had gas reserves amounting to 11.42 Tcf and after decades of consumption their net remaining recoverable gas reserves as on June 2007 would be around 7.70 Tcf.brBut the actual gas reserves in these fields might prove to significantly more once the 3D seismic survey is conducted, Chief Adviser's special assistant professor M Tamim told the FE.brThe nature of these gas fields and their existing pressure gave enough indications that these fields might have significantly more gas reserves than their initial estimations, he said. br The seismic surveys will take three years and would begin later this year, said a Petrobangla senior official.br