Potential offshore Sangu platform lies idle

Bangladesh's maiden offshore hydrocarbon platform worth around US$300 million lies long idle since the dereliction of Sangu gas field over a decade ago despite its potential for using as a facility to re-gasify liquefied gases.

Sources say the facility with subsea pipeline and an onshore processing unit has been laid to waste for government negligence, while private companies making the most out of domestic gas shortages and import of liquid gases.

"Neither did the government take any initiative to utilise the infrastructure itself nor lease it out to any interested sponsor to operate it," says one insider about the missed opportunity for a decade or so.

Keeping the infrastructure unused for a longer time is posing threat of permanent damage to the facility, sources fear.

Official sources have said the previous authoritarian Awami League government did not take any initiative to use the precious Sangu natural-gas platform although several local and global firms sought permission to operate it.

"The previous government could only let the infrastructure get damaged in negligence," it has been alleged.

Energy experts say the Sangu platform has the potential to be used as a gateway to import liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LNG) or compressed natural gas (CNG). The LNG, LPG or CNG could be processed into natural gas in the onshore gas-processing plant near the Sangu platform.

Petrobangla sources say Sangu facilities include the platform in the Bay of Bengal, subsea pipeline and onshore gas-processing plant. The onshore plant is located at Fouzdarhat in southeastern Chattogram district.

A 50-kilometre-long 20-inch-diameter seabed pipeline links the offshore platform and the onshore plant for processing crudes.

The Sangu platform is located in the calm sea near the planned bay terminal of Chattogram seaport at Silimpur, which is free from sea turmoil.

Unlike the country's two operational floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), which are prone to natural calamity, the Sangu platform has the advantage to be functional even during peak monsoon when the sea usually remains rough, without interruption.

Officials have said energy and mineral resources division made a move several years ago to build or install small-scale FSRU having the LNG-regasification capacity of around 200 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd).

But the plan was shelved in 2018 as the government focused more on importing LNG and building bigger-capacity FSRUs and subsequently built two such units having the capacity to re-gasify around 500mmcfd each by 2019.

To meet the country' mounting gas demand, the government now considers allowing private entrepreneurs to build more FSRUs, re-gasify imported LNG and supply it to the national-gas grid, says a senior energy ministry official.

Contacted over the conundrum, energy expert Prof Ijaz Hossain, who teaches at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, suggested urgent government action to use Sangu platform with its subsea pipeline before its damage.

"As millions of dollars were invested there, the government should either utilise the facility itself or allow any interested firm to utilise it," says the expert.

When contacted, Petrobangla chairman Md Rezanur Rahman also stressed the necessity of the Sangu platform in national interest. "We shall look into the issue," he told The Financial Express.

Sangu gas field was discovered in 1996 in the Bay of Bengal, 50 kilometres off the landmass near Silimpur.

Australian oil and gas firm Santos was in charge of operations when the field was permanently shut on 01 October 2013.

Offshore Sangu gas field started supplying natural gas in 1998 under the operatorship of world-renowned international oil company (IOC) Cairn Energy.

Initially, it produced around 50mmcfd gas, which increased up to 180mmcfd.

Production levels dropped to an average of 49mmcfd in 2009 and 18mmcfd in 2011, according to official data of Petrobangla, for lack of expansion of the field.

It was declared abandoned when gas production dropped to 2.0-3.0mmcfd at the end of 2013.

According to Petrobangla, an estimated 488 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas was produced from this gas field between 1998 and 2013. Sangu was discovered by Cairn with a proven reserve of 800 billion cubic feet (Bcf). Its ownership was handed to Dutch Shell Oil Company with assets and liabilities in 1998.

But, after steady production of gas for six years from Sangu, Shell gave all of its upstream assets and undertakings back to Cairn in 2004. Cairn sold the field off to Santos in 2010.

Santos and its predecessors Cairn and Shell invested more than $1.0 billion in the Sangu gas field, market insiders say explaining the chronicles of the hydrocarbon turf.

Azizjst@yahoo.com