Petrobangla report Wednesday likely

Petrobangla is planning to submit the evaluation report of the 3rd round international bidding for hydrocarbon exploration in the country's maritime territory to the Energy Ministry on Wednesday.
According to official sources, the state-owned hydrocarbon and mineral resource corporation is about to complete the bid-evaluation.
When contacted, Petrobangla Director and Head of the Bid Evaluation Committee Mokbul-e-Elahi told UNB, “We've already completed more than 90 percent of our job, now we need only one meeting to wrap up the report.”
He informed that the committee's last meeting is scheduled for June 18 and it has a plan to submit the bid evaluation report to the Energy Ministry on the same day.
Earlier, Petrobangla officials informed that they had targeted June 15 to complete the evaluation. But they could not complete the job because of last moment's change in the members of the committee.
Under the latest tendering process, undertaken at a time when the country is experiencing severe energy shortages, Petrobangla on May 7 received a total of 22 bids for 15 offshore and deep-sea blocks from seven international oil companies (IOCs).
About a writ petition pending with the High Court, which issued an order to the government to explain the reason for the bidding, the Petrobangla officials said this would not hamper their evaluation process, as the court did not suspend it.
Earlier, on February 15, it had floated international tender to lease out country's gas blocks in the offshore areas, divided into 28 blocks in two categories. Of them, eight are shallow blocks and the rest 20 deepwater blocks.
The seven IOCs, who participated in the bidding are US-based ConocoPhillips, Australia-based Santos International, Longwood Resources, Korea National Oil Corporation, Contrack Service Ltd, Tullow Bangladesh and CNOOC of China.
Among the bidders, ConocoPhillips have submitted the highest four bids for eight blocks, followed by Santos with three bids submitted for six blocks.
Longwood offered two bids for three blocks, while Korea National Oil, Contrack, Tullow and CNOOC have given tenders for one block each.
Bangladesh invited tender for the first-round gas-block bidding in 1993, while for the second round in 1997.
The country is experiencing a shortage of about 100 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas per day against its demand of 1900mmcf.
Apart from the official record, there is huge hidden demand for gas from the industries.
Experts believe the shortage will be widening in the days ahead as there is no certain possible way to increase the production volume to make the two ends meet amid a growing demand.
Industry, power and fertiliser sectors are suffering a lot for the gas shortages. And they believe the country will experience severe energy crisis after 2012.
The existing gas reserve is estimated at around 8.0 trillion cubic feet (tcf), which will hardly meet the energy demand up to 2015.
It has been estimated that to meet the energy demand up to 2025 around 24-tcf gas will be required.
Against this backdrop, the 3rd-round bidding was invited, but Petrobangla officials said it would take at least eight years to get gas from new discoveries under this international block bidding.
According to the Energy Ministry, the country will need to invest at least US$ 8 billion for development of the hydrocarbon sector to meet the future demand.