The government Monday announced discovery of new reserve of an estimated 1.0 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas in Rashidpur gas field in northern region in a major boost to the country’s ailing energy sector.
Petrobangla chairman Dr. Hussain Monsur declared the new discovery of gas in state-owned Rashidpur gas field at a press briefing at Petrocentre in the city Monday evening.
He said the newly discovered structure — eastern flank — of Rashidpur gas field has 967.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas reserve under low to medium risk category.
The probability of finding gas from it is 80-90 per cent, he said.
Besides, there are potential gas reserves of around 2.41 tcf in high risk category in the same ‘eastern flank’ of the Rashidpur gas field and the probability of finding gas is below 50 per cent, he said.
Petrobangla announced the fresh discovery of gas following a 3D seismic survey conducted by Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex) in Rashidpur gas field spanning over an area of 325 square kilometres.
During the press briefing, Petrobangla also lowered its previous estimation of gas reserves in western flank of Rashidpur gas field by 129.7 bcf to 1.87 tcf.
Around 482.8 bcf of gas from western flank of the Rashidpur gas field has already been consumed until July 2011.
“It is a great success of Bapex and the country’s energy sector,” said the Petrobangla Chairman.
Bapex, a subsidiary of Petrobangla, conducted the 3D survey for the first time in its history.
“Bapex’s engineers conducted the survey successfully after being trained at home and abroad,” Bapex Managing Director Mortuza Ahmad Faruque said.
Rashidpur is a producing gas field having a daily output of around 48 million cubic feet (mmcfd) of gas from five wells.
Bapex also located two major faults in geological structures of Rashidpur gas field following the 3D survey.
Petrobangla has planned to produce 55 mmcfd of additional gas from western flank after drilling three wells.
Apart from Rashidpur, Bapex has also completed 3D surveys at Kailashtila, Bakhrabad, Titas and Sylhet gas fields.
State-owned Petrobangla’s subsidiary Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Ltd, or BGFCL, owns two fields — Titas and Bakhrabad — while Petrobangla’s another subsidiary Sylhet Gas Field Ltd, or SGFL, holds three fields — Rashidpur, Kailashtila and Sylhet.
Data interpretation of the 3D survey for the remaining fields will be completed soon.
BGFCL and SFGL are acting as the ‘Executing Agency’ in their respective gas fields while BAPEX is working as the ‘Implementing Agency” for the whole project.
Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) is financing US$23 million project to complete 3D surveys in five prospective major Bangladesh gas fields by first half of 2013.
French Geophysical firm — CGG Veritas — has facilitated Bapex to conduct 3D seismic surveys.
All the five fields under the 3D survey programmes including that of Rashidpur gas field, were discovered during the 1960s but no extensive surveys were conducted before to confirm the exact size of their reserves.
Petrobangla officials said, initial recoverable reserves estimated in these fields were around 11 Tcf with over 7.0 Tcf already depleted after years of consumption.