Stuck-up drilling string freed at Shahbazpur

"Today (Saturday) BAPEX (Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration) operators made a headway in the work over drilling of Shahbazpur," said a Petrobangla official. "Now we believe the project will get a fresh lease of life."

US oil company Chevron however chipped in with suggestions to deal with this problem.

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In a deja vu in May, the drilling string got stuck inside the gas well while trying to perforate a seal that was fixed eight years back.

Petrobangla's oil and gas exploration subsidiary BAPEX sealed the well in 1995, as the government did not want to immediately develop the field.

Gas production in Shahbazpur was to begin from July as per original schedule. But that project seems to be many months behind time, sources said.

BAPEX initiated a $3 million development work at Shahbazpur gas field in June 2001 with the objective of feeding a 20 MW power plant as well as supplying gas to the energy starved south-western region gradually.

The field is expected to supply 20 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas initially. Though the country consumes above 1250mmcfd gas, the south-western region could not be brought under gas supply scheme.

But the fruit of the present gas development project would not be immediately reaped, as the government has not yet decided on the 20 MW power plant.

At the fag end of the Awami League rule, the bidding for the project was floated but the three-month caretaker administration halted the over-priced scheme. The project remains shelved since then.

In the mid-2000, the government assigned BAPEX to prepare a development plan for Shahbazpur gas field which happened to be the centre of focus of the controversial Western Region Integrated Project (WRIP) of the US oil company Unocal.

Drilling the same well back in 1994, the BAPEX ran into similar problem due to unexpected high pressure inside the well. The national explorers however succeeded eventually to push ahead the scheme and struck gas there in the following year.

But BAPEX stumbled again as soon as gas was discovered. As Shahbazpur is located in the off-shore Bhola island, the government was hesitant about developing the field through BAPEX to cater for the gas need of the southwestern region and opted for foreign investment instead.

But rather going for an open invitation for foreign investment, the government sealed an exclusive deal with Unocal that proposed the WRIP. But it demanded high price passing all the risk factors on the government. During a scrutiny by American experts, Unocal withdrew from the project.