India's ONGC Videsh Ltd has plugged and abandoned drilling Kanchon gas well as the firm couldn't discover any hydrocarbon in Bangladesh's shallow-water gas block.
The explorers drilled beyond its targeted depth of around 4,228 metres beneath the surface in search of a commercially viable deposit of gas in the block SS-04 situated on Moheshkhali Island in the Bay of Bengal, a senior energy ministry official told the FE Wednesday.
"Plugging and abandoning the well means the well does not have prospect of hydrocarbon reserves," he says-on a note of frustration as the country smarts under gas shortages following a virtual pause in exploration of new gas reserves and opts for expensive LNG import.
Only what could be found were huge deposits of clay and shell-stone sequence in absence of sandstone, meaning there is no gas-reserve prospect there.
The Indian firm was, however, upbeat about discovering three layers of gas structures having the total gas potential resources of around 1.0 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in the SS-04 block covering some 7,269 square kilometres (sq km), which prompted the company to carry out the exploratory drilling.
It had to overcome complexities to reach the targeted drilling zone as the logging tools got stuck for several weeks, and finally the drilling contractor - Chinese Sinopec - could pull out the logging tools to resume the drilling.
Sources say the drilling right on Kanchan, located under shallow-water Block SS-04, was bestowed on ONGC under a production-sharing contract (PSC) with the state-run Petrobangla and the government of Bangladesh.
The firm initially had planned to carry out Kanchan drilling couple of years back. The onslaught of the Coronavirus pandemic, subsequent lockdown, restricted movement of personnel and equipment, and tax-payment row with the authorities concerned had earlier prolonged the mandatory drilling of the well.
ONGC and its drilling subcontractors were in payment rows due to the delays.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, a dispute over advance income tax (AIT) and demurrage payments on drilling equipment were delaying the drilling of the exploratory well.
The drilling of the Kanchan well was the first offshore drilling in the country's maritime territory in five years.
Australian oil-and-gas-exploration-company Santos along with state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (BAPEX) earlier in February 2017 drilled offshore Magnama-2 well under Block 16. And it was also found all dry after drilling.
The joint venture had drilled the Magnama-2 well into a depth of around 3,200 metres only to find it dry.
This drilling cost BAPEX around US$29 million.
There are also no producing offshore gas wells in the country and the entire natural gas output comes from onshore gas fields as well as import of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
In the meantime, the fuel crunch prompts the government to declare gas rationing during Ramadan by way of shutting down CNG-filling stations for hours to meet peak-hour power demand.
Azizjst@yahoo.com