Amid questions on cost and work quality, Gazprom EP International, a Russian company, has started drilling of Tobgi-1 well of Shahbazpur gas field in Bhola district. Media reports on Saturday said Gazprom will drill the well to a depth of about 3,500 meters and it expects that 20 to 25 million cubic feet of gas per day will be produced from the well. Bapex officials, however, said the development and gas exploration from the well will be completed by December this year. This is part of a government initiative to hike domestic production in the face of a volatile global LNG market. The Russian company will drill three wells in Bhola at a cost of about Tk 600 crore.
Energy experts alleged that Gazprom was given the job at a higher cost than the state-owned company Bapex. And that there was no competition as this work was given without tender under the Special Energy Supply Act. The maximum cost of BAPEX for drilling such wells is Tk 85 crore, whereas Gazprom is being paid around Tk 200 crore per well. Although Gazprom digs at higher prices, the past experience of getting gas from the previous wells is not pleasant. For this, experts and a number of Petrobangla officials questioned awarding the work to Gazprom, as they said performance of the company was disappointing in previous projects. The Island district of Bhola is considered to be one of the most promising sources of energy for Bangladesh. All other gas fields in the country have been discovered in the Surma Basin. BAPEX started extracting gas from Bhola’s Shahbazpur gas field in 2009.
The question is why did the authorities not seriously try to explore for gas until now? Time is required to get the results even if gas exploration is carried out right now. The situation could have been handled well if gas had been explored for and extracted earlier. According to experts, the energy crisis we have been facing was not supposed to be there. We have conducted gas exploration only 25 times in the last about 24 years. It can be said that we have done almost nothing to get gas from our own sources.
In order to benefit a handful of businessmen, the government did not pay heed to what the experts said. They sold oil at a higher price to people buying it in lower price. At the same time the government subsidised billions of taka for rental and quick rental power plants. Why could the government not come out of the vicious circle of rental and quick rental power plants? A portion of money taken as gas bills from the consumers was supposed to be spent for gas exploration and extraction. But instead of doing that, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation spent the money in other sectors. What is the answer to this injudiciousness?
Power supply to industries will have to be uninterrupted in order to ensure production at local industries, otherwise the crisis will intensify. Already production in garment factories is getting hampered due to power rationing. Improvement of the situation is the urgent need of the hour.
