Manjurul Ahsan
State-run oil, gas and mineral resources corporation Petrobangla is likely to bring a case against the Polish oil company Cracow as it declined to drill five fresh wells in two gas fields after winning the tender.
A Petrobangla official told New Age that Petrobangla would take legal advice from law firms before deciding whether to bring charges against the Polish company.
The Russisan state oil company, Gazprom, is currently negotiating with Petrobangla to take over the project that the Polish company declined to undertake.
‘We are extremely disappointed at the decision of Cracow as it retreated from implementing the projects on the basis of something that had been well known before the bid was floated,’ he said.
The Polish oil company Poszukiwania Naftyi i Gazu Krakow (Oil and Gas Exploration Company Cracow) informed Petrobangla earlier in February that it would not drill five wells in the Titas and Rashidpur gas fields claiming that the fields were leaking gas.
The Titas and Rashidpur gas fields are owned by the Bangladesh Gas Field Company and the Sylhet Gas Field, two subsidiaries of Petrobangla.
Following the success of Cracow in winning the bid, negotiations with the company opened on September 9, 2010 and were completed on September 27, 2010.
Professor Anu Mohammad, member secretary of the national committee to protect oil, gas, mineral resources, power and ports, said that foreign companies were unable to complete projects on time even though Petrobangla pays them three to five time the amount it would cost state-run companies.
He said that such kind of withdrawal hampers the implementation of national policies, particularly the development projects.
He said that international oil companies had in the past left gas blocks without conducting any exploration for oil and gas and that this was done to ultimately extract from the government better financial benefits for the company over and above the agreement.
‘This is highly alarming for the energy security of the country,’ he warned.
The Petrobangla official said that the decision by Cracow had created a crisis within the orgnanisation as the project was planned to provide at least 100 million cubic feet of additional gas a day which comprised half the total target of additional gas that the government wanted to be supplied to the national grid from state-run gas fields by 2012.
In addition, Petrobangla had, under the same agreement, hoped to expand the project with Cracow by increasing the number of wells it drilled in the state-owned gas fields.
In September 2009, Petrobangla had sought expressions of interest from foreign firms for drilling in the state-owned gas fields.
Following interest from 25 global oil companies, the Polish company was selected, in an open tender, to develop and produce natural gas by drilling wells with integrated services including the supply of all materials, on a turnkey basis, at the Titas gas field.
Cracow has appointed a local law firm to try and realise the $1 million that it had deposited as the bid bond, the Petrobangla official said.
Read the original story on the daily New Age
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