State-run Petrobangla has finalised a draft of the model production sharing contract (PSC) to launch a fresh bidding round for onshore and offshore energy exploration.
"We sent the draft of the PSC to the Power and Energy Ministry recently for its final approval," a senior Petrobangla official told the FE on Saturday.
He said unlike the past several biddings, Petrobangla would offer both onshore and offshore blocks to the international oil companies (IOCs) for the exploration of oil and gas.
Severe natural gas crisis coupled with the commencement of expensive LNG (liquefied natural gas) and insufficient output from the previous offshore bidding rounds have prompted the state-run oil, gas and mineral corporation to go for 'aggressive' hunt of hydrocarbon, he added.
Currently, some 26 offshore blocks and over a dozen onshore blocks have remained unexplored.
Petrobangla has not offered IOCs any onshore oil and gas blocks for exploration since 1997, although the country's entire domestic natural gas production comes from the onshore gas fields alone.
After 1997, Petrobangla launched three international bidding rounds-in 2008, in 2012 and in 2016--for hydrocarbon exploration by the IOCs only in offshore blocks.
The outcome of these three consecutive bidding rounds, exclusively for offshore blocks, however, did not bring any expected results for the country as IOCs could not make a single commercial discovery of hydrocarbon.
During the 2008 offshore bidding round, Petrobangla could attract some bids, but the then maritime boundary dispute with Myanmar in most of the blocks put a damper on the effort.
However, the government succeeded in signing a PSC for two deep sea blocks on 16 June, 2011 with the US's ConocoPhillips for DS-10 and DS-11 blocks.
ConocoPhillips conducted 2D (two dimensional) seismic survey in 2012 and 2013.
After interpretation, the American energy giant identified a few prospects but later relinquished the blocks considering their investment to be 'not feasible.'
Under the 2012 bidding round, three PSCs were signed for three shallow water blocks.
Of them, India's ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) and state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (BAPEX) inked PSCs for blocks SS-04 and SS-09; and Australian Santos, Singapore's KrisEnergy and state-run BAPEX for shallow water block SS-11.
State-run BAPEX has 10 per cent carried interest stakes with these shallow water blocks.
One deepwater block DS-12 was awarded to Posco Daweoo Corporation following the 2016 bidding round.
Although all the four offshore blocks-three shallow and one deep sea-are operative no discovery of hydrocarbon is yet to be made, Petrobangla sources said.
The country's natural gas production is currently hovering at around 2,700 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) against the demand for around 4,000 mmcfd.
Natural gas is currently being produced from 21 onshore gas fields, of which IOCs are producing around 1,667 mmcfd of gas, or 61.17 per cent of the total domestic output while the local companies are producing the remaining 38.83 per cent.
Petrobangla is also currently supplying around 150 mmcfd of 'expensive' re-gasified LNG to Chattogram consumers to meet the local demand.
