| Dhaka yet to wake up to offshore cross-currents India, Myanmar take steps to explore hydrocarbon reserves While neighbouring Myanmar and India have taken steps to explore potential hydrocarbon reserves in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh has failed to take commensurate measures due to indecision and neglect of the all-important issue of demarcating maritime boundary. Myanmar has completed its seismic survey for oil and gas exploration in a disputed area close to Bangladesh's deep sea blocks 8 to 13. Myanmar's action in going ahead with explorations is tantamount to breach of commitment that it will refrain from any exploration activity before resolving the boundary issue with Bangladesh. "Considering the grater interest of the country and to uphold our rightful claim on our declared EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), we must continue our exploration if not in all the blocks at least on the undisputed blocks in the Bay", Commodore (Rtd) Khurshed Alam, additional secretary, foreign ministry has told The Independent. At the same time, hard and sustainable negotiation should be continued with the neighbouring countries to establish the rightful claim of Bangladesh on the Bay, he added. It is learnt that Indian and Myanmar offshore gas blocks overlap an area of five thousand sq km on the eastern side of Bangladesh deep sea zone. Bangladesh has not so far made any definitive move in this regard. India and Myanmar already have done so and found large offshore gas deposits. "The issue has become a complex one as the maritime boundary issue remains to be resolved with the neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, a citizens' group has demanded that the ongoing (or stalled) bidding process be cancelled and that public sector national gas exploration company BAPEX should be strengthened to undertake the job", a top official of the energy ministry told The Independent. According to the energy ministry, Petrobangla last year selected Conoco Phillips, a US-based company and Tullow Bangladesh, as the right bidders to explore hydrocarbon in nine blocks in the Bay of Bengal. A government committee selected the companies after evaluating the technical offers submitted by nine companies from across the world. Tullow submitted its bid for the shallow-sea block 5, which is partially claimed by India. The committee selected Conoco as the right bidder for blocks 10,11, 12,15,16 ,17, 20 and 21. It is learnt that although Petrobangla has received 6 bids for the areas which India also claims to be within its waters. A committee member said the Petrobangla has got poor response from the bidders in deep-sea areas as it has no data on deep sea. "The unsettled dispute over maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar is also a reason for such poor response from the bidders", a Petrobangla official said. Experts feel Bangladesh should not waste time in claiming these blocks as its own because they legitimately belong to this country. Such a claim will discourage the IOCs from entering into contracts with neighbouring countries before this lingering problem is mutually settled. India declared its offshore area up to 3000m depth for block bidding several years ago. Myanmar also did the same more than two years ago. But Bangladesh failed to take any concrete step for offshore bidding to add fresh energy resource to feed the country's starving energy sector. "Some people have expressed the view that we have to engage the national exploration company to carry out exploration but the reality is that Bapex is not capable of conducting a 3D seismic in the Bay in terms of technology, financial strength. BAPEX has still to go a long way to build its capacity in offshore bidding", Muktadir Ali, Director PSC told The Independent. "Yes, we are not capable of handling the offshore issue. It is a fact", Immaduddin, Managing Director of Bapex said. Professor Nurul Islam of BUET, a renowned energy expert of the country said. Bapex is not capable at this moment and we need IOCs to explore the offshore blocks but in that case we have to protect our national interest first. Myanmar had 21.19 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, or 0.3 per cent of the world's total, while Bangladesh had 13.77 trillion cubic feet, or 0.2 per cent, at the end of 2007, according to BP Plc. Most of it is located in the Bay of Bengal. Before going for tender to award the blocks to the IOCs Petrobangla sent the PSC model to all concerned including the ministries and agencies. Petrobangla, on May 7 last year, opened the tender documents of seven companies that submitted bids for 12 deep-sea blocks and three shallow-water blocks. No company has so far submitted any bids for eight deep-sea and five shallow-water blocks. According to Petrobangla sources, the committee evaluated the bids on marking system that was dependent on 'work programme' of the IOCs along with specific offers.Petrobangla faced difficulties in reaching any agreement with these oil companies as the government was indecisive in taking any decision. ;http://www.theindependent-bd.com/details.php?nid=122148 |
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