This year's PSC most attractive: PetroBangla

The government has claimed that the production sharing contract (PSC) of this year’s oil and gas exploration has been the most attractive.

Officials from Petrobangla claimed this at a press conference organized at PetroBangla office at Karwan Bazar in the capital on Monday (March 11). The press conference was organised after the floating of a tender on Sunday (March 10), calling for oil and gas exploration and extraction at block-24 in the Bay of Bengal.

The tender, named ‘Oil and Natural Gas Exploration Under Bangladesh Offshore Bidding Round 2024’, was published in local newspapers and websites of concerned government entities including Bangladeshi missions abroad on Sunday giving six months’ time until September 9, 2024 for submission of the bids.
As per the floated tender, a total of 24 offshore blocks — of which nine are shallow blocks — and 15 deep sea blocks are available for the bidding round. The bidder, singly or in association with other companies, can bid for one or more blocks.

The world's top 55 multinational oil and gas companies have been directly invited to participate in the tender. The tender was floated in nine newspapers of the country and it will be published in the foreign news outlet The Economist. The tender has been sent to various embassies of Bangladesh and the embassy officials have been asked to contact the oil and gas exploration and extraction companies of those countries.
At the press conference, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, energy adviser to the Prime Minister, said, “We hope to get a massive response from interested companies. Gas pricing in sync with Brent crude oil has been positive for us. Several things have been added to make it attractive. The interested companies will get the opportunity to carry out the survey for four years. Then they will take time again to explore. I hope those who have shown interest so far will come forward.”

Speaking at the press briefing, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said, “After waiting for a long time, the initial work of oil and gas exploration has started today. We are starting bidding in 24 blocks. We want famous and experienced companies from all over the world to participate. We started this work in 2021. It took three years to conduct the multi-client survey. The data of 13,000 square kilometres is now in our hands.”

Mentioning that several countries, including the United States, have expressed interest, he said, "We expect this bidding to be held competitively. Pre-bidding meeting will be held after Ramadan. Interested companies are expected to participate there.”

Energy Secretary Nurul Alam and Petrobangla Chairman Janendranath Sarkar also spoke at the press conference.