Redoubled exploration in south coast, releasing Bhola gas caches accelerate

Curing Bangladesh's economic development-limiting fuel crunch gets under focus as exploration in the south coast and releasing locked Bhola gas caches gather speed.

Sources say the government has fielded agencies to carry out feasibility study on pipeline setting to carry the stranded Bhola gas to mainland to utilise the island's gas to meet the country's mounting fuel demand.

State-run Gas Transmission Company Ltd (GTCL) is carrying out the study and expecting to complete the survey by February 2026.

Half the job has already been done under an urgency of utilising the hydrocarbon resources of the southern island district of Bangladesh, found long before but couldn't so far be transmitted into national grid for lack of the piping facility.

"We have already completed feasibility study over Bhola-Barishal gas-transmission pipeline and are currently carrying out the study on the Barishal-Aminbazar part of the pipeline," GTCL managing director Md Haroon Bhuiyan told The Financial Express.

The Bhola-Barishal transmission pipeline having 24-inch diameter would be feasible once it can carry around 250 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) to 300 mmcfd of gas, the feasibility study reveals.

Around Tk 27 billion will be required to build the Bhola-Barishal pipeline as per cost analysis of the study.

The government company has appointed the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) to do the feasibility study on the Barishal-Aminbazar section of the transmission pipeline, said the GTCL top brass.

The feasibility studies would be helpful in carrying untapped Bhola gas through the most feasible and cost-effective way of pipeline.

Separately, state-run Petrobangla has moved to intensify hydrocarbon explorations in the Bhola island of the Bay of Bengal to delineate its oil- and gas-reserve potential before initiating the pipeline- laying works.

The corporation has already chalked out a programme to drill a total of 19 new gas wells on the island over next several years to determine its gas- reserve potential.

Petrobangla's subsidiary -- Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (BAPEX) -- is set to assign Chinese oil- and- gas- exploration-company Sinopec International Petroleum Service Corporation to drill five gas wells this year.

"Fourteen more wells will be awarded to the potential exploration companies soon," a senior Petrobangla official has said.

A joint study carried out by Russian Gazprom and BAPEX revealed last year that potential gas reserves in Bhola could reach up to around 5.0 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) if necessary drillings are carried out.

Some 600-square-kilometre three-dimensional (3D) seismic survey from Shahbazpur to Elisha indicated potential reserves of 2.4Tcf gas. A 152 km 2D seismic survey at Char Fasion indicated some 2.69 Tcf of reserves.

Russia's Gazprom has been working as a contractor firm in Bangladesh for more than a decade since 2012 and drilled some 20 wells in different gas fields that include the Bhola turf.

Currently Shahbazpur gas field, owned by BAPEX, produces around 73 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) from four producing wells.

Sources say the developed gas fields in Bhola island have the total production capacity of around 200mmcfd gas but production is limited to around 70 mmcfd due to dearth of consumers in the backwater area.

Around 130 mmcfd of surplus gas remained unused and strapped in Shahbazpur, Bhola and Ilisha gas fields.

Much of the demand for gas supply from existing industries and investment-planned ones in the queue as well as homes crying for connections to supply lines remained unmet, despite rising import of costly pre-gasification liquefied natural gas or LNG.

Currently, Bangladesh's overall natural-gas output is around 2,750mmcfd , including around 1,000mmcfd imported regasified LNG, against the demand for over 4,000mmcfd.

azizjst@yahoo.com