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Bangladesh, which is waiting for a UN tribunal ruling on its sea boundary with Myanmar later this month, hopes to offer some disputed deepwater gas blocks along with eight shallow water offshore blocks
under a bidding round in April, Petrobangla's director for PSCs Muhammah Imaduddin said Wednesday.
"We are planning to offer at least two to three deepwater gas blocks in the planned April bidding round if Bangladesh gets legitimate right over the deepwater blocks in the verdict by the international tribunal," Imaduddin, who looks after Petrobangla's production sharing contracts with international oil companies, said.
The International Maritime Boundary Dispute Settlement Tribunal in Hamburg, Germany, will pass a verdict in the Bangladesh-Myanmar maritime boundary dispute on March 14, Bangladesh's Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said earlier.
Bangladesh had filed a lawsuit on December 14, 2010, with the UN's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea after Myanmar sent a flotilla to explore for petroleum inside Bangladesh's extended territorial waters.
Bangladesh claimed its continental shelf under the provisions of Article 76 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982; and the area for which Bangladesh has submitted data ranges from 390 to 460 nautical miles southward from its coastline.
Bangladesh has never explored for hydrocarbons in deepwater offshore gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal.
Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips is now the lone international oil company involved in deepwater oil and gas exploration inn the Bay of Bengal.
ConocoPhillips was awarded exploration rights over a part of Bangladesh's deepwater gas blocks DS-08-10 and DS-08-11 in the February 2008 offshore bidding round.
The US firm was given the right to explore around 70% of block DS-08-10 and 85% of block DS-08-11, but it will not be able to touch the rest of the two blocks until Bangladesh has resolved its maritime boundary dispute with India and Myanmar, which have both staked claims to the area.
A verdict in the case involving India is expected in 2014.
Separately, Irish Tullow was also selected for a shallow water gas block SS-08-05 under the 2008 bidding round, but a PSC is yet to be inked with it due to the maritime boundary dispute.
Bangladesh has planned the April bidding due to rising domestic demand, Petrobangla Chairman Hussain Monsur said earlier.
The international companies operating in Bangladesh are Chevron, Santos and Tullow Oil; and their total natural gas output is around 1.06 Bcf/d, which accounts for 53% of the country's overall production. State-run gas companies produce the remaining 940,000 Mcf/d of gas, or 47% of the total.
The April round will be the country's fourth, following tenders in 1997, 2001 and 2008. --Mohammad Azizur Rahman, newsdesk@platts.com
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/NaturalGas/7331411
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