Anisul Islam Noor :The government will financially strengthen the Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company (BAPEX) so that it can explore mineral resources at home and abroad, said State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Nasrul Hamid.The energy division has been working to allocate about Tk 350 crore for initiating a joint venture with Australian Oil Company Santos for extraction of gas from an offshore block, the minister told The New Nation on Sunday.The effort of strengthening the BAPEX by providing necessary materials on time in exploring offshore and onshore mineral resources will be continued, he informed.The amount will be spent for establishing joint venture company with BAPEX, exploring oil and gas in offshore and onshore areas, human resources and skill development, the Energy Division sources said.In 2008, Santos’s predecessor Cairn Energy failed to explore gas following a failure in its first attempt to drill a well at Magnama structure in offshore block-16, officials said.However, energy expert Badrul Imam, who is also Dhaka University Geology Department Professor, said that the Magnama was yet to be explored and BAPEX should not accept the liability of a failed exploration attempt.Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration Company, BAPEX, will have to invest another $17.5 million in drilling a second gas well at Magnama.BAPEX will have to invest a total of $40.3 million to own a 49 per cent share in the proposed joint-venture with Santos Sangu Fields Limited, according to a proposal Santos submitted to the government on March 22. In that case, Santos may not be required to invest, as the cost for drilling the second well was estimated for $35 million, said a Petrobangla official. Further investment would be required if the joint-venture goes for further development works, the proposal said.Santos in a bid to make its proposal attractive said that it was expecting to sell the gas, if discovered, directly to a third party at more than $7 per thousand cubic feet. Santos had managed to sell 20 billion cubic feet of gas from Sangu field at $4.5 per unit to the state-run Power Development Board under an amended Production Sharing Contract with the government.
