11th March 2008. It is 6 a.m here in Ipswich, Australia. Bangladesh must be in deep sleep. With the hope of finding some encouraging news about Bangladesh carried out usual routine before preparing for the work after the Morning Prayer. While browsing Bangladeshi Newspapers got the shocking news that Cairn apparently failed to strike gas in Hatiya also. News in the same newspaper indicates the negative response of Myanmar regarding gas export to Bangladesh. Myanmar has huge discovered gas reserve. There is no reason why they can not agree to export gas to Bangladesh as long as Bangladesh agrees to pay the price that others have committed. Anyway, these developments negate any hope of mitigating the serious gas and energy crisis in the south eastern part of Bangladesh in particular. Very unfortunate, very sad for Bangladesh and its poor helpless struggling people. Let us deal the two matters in some depth.

After the failure of Cairn to discover gas in South Shangu & Magnama, failure at the last frontier Hatiya has dealt severe blow to the Bangladesh energy sector. These may not encourage oil majors to respond positively to our invitation to bid for deep water drilling at this stage. Wonder whether the exploration wells were in correct locations. For the last three years Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) and Petrobangla were dreaming that huge gas reserve in these apparently prospective structures will bless the gas sector of Bangladesh. Pinning hopes against hopes Government did not push Cairn or Chevron to expedite exploration at block 5, 7 & 10. Neither had they helped our national flag bearer in the upstream of petroleum sector Bapex to carry out extensive exploration and development work in its assigned blocks Eight and Eleven. Petrobangla and GTCL were not much focused in expediting the implementation of pipeline compressor project to move gas from origin to growth center. All these have put our energy sector in a very desperate situation. Lack of gas supply has started adversely affecting power generation. With no other feasible alternative fuel available Bangladesh may face extreme energy crisis for several years it seems.

The initial seismic survey report of Magnama and Hatiya reportedly indicated positive gas show. Some over enthusiastic energy sector executives even calculated the probable gas reserve. Energy bosses on many occasion talked to press about the high prospect of these structures. But the initial attempts for exploration brought very demoralizing results. For experienced reservoir or petroleum professionals it is too early to dismiss the prospect of finding gas in the structures but now the probability is diminishing. Offshore drilling requires patience, requires most authentic seismic data and geological information. The chance of striking petroleum reserve depends on accurate location of exploratory drilling. It now needs to be seen what kind of information led Cairn to let off expectation for bright prospects for Magnama and Haitya and what led our so called experts of Petrobangla to believe the Cairn information. The news this morning also states that Petrobangla is planning to ration gas supply to bulk consumers. This was to be done in any case. Even if we had some discovery in Magnama and Haitya this would have required at least 4 years to get the fruit of it. So the gas rationing if any in Chittagong or anywhere in Bangladesh gas grid must not be tagged with initial negative results of drilling at Magnama or Haitya. All efforts now should be directed to evacuate the stranded 100MCFD gas from the north eastern corridor to South Eastern part of Bangladesh.

As has been indicated in some previous write up Bangladesh now has a Production capacity of 1845 MMCFD .But for transmission constraint it is not possible to transport more than 1745 MMCFD. We may again review here how the national Gas grid operates in the upstream and downstream segments of Ashuganj Gas Manifold Station (AGMS) transmission hub. The gas fields upstream of AGMS which feeds to the national grid produce.

10 Gas Fields currently can deliver a maximum of 1115 MMCFD to national grid and 132 MMCFD to JGTDSL and TGTDCL. About 100MMCFD gas remains stranded in three producing fields of Chevron for transmission constraint of North South and Rashidpoor Ashuganj Loop line. The design capacity of N-S at MAOP of 1054 PSIG and 800 PSIG terminal pressure is 420MMCFD .But due to staggered nature of gas delivery in to pipeline N-S currently transports about 500MMCFD while 82KM 30 “ OD R-A loop line carries about 620MMCFD.These two pipeline capacities are absolutely saturated. It requires either compression at designated locations or arrangement to divert some gas from any of the loop locations of the system creating room for additional injection into the grid to move further gas from N_S corridor to AGMS.This can be done by constructing about 13 KM spur line from Khatihata to Ashuganj. This pipeline may take out about 200MMCFD from the N-S & R-A lines at Kahtihata manifold and thereby allow the system to transport the presently stranded gas to AGMS.The Construction of the pipeline if taken up seriously can be completed in one year from now.

Other options like additional well at Bakhrabad, increase of production from Bhangura, exploration at Sreekail, development of Semutang may take time. Please also consider the capacity restriction of BKB- CTG transmission line. You can only transport a definite volume of gas through a pipeline at designed inlet and outlet pressures. Gas is a compressible fluid and is driven by pressure differential. For this pipeline to carry more gas the Shangu feed must not be introduced into this line at Salimpoor and must be feed downstream of CGS, CTG in the CTG ring main.

Regarding gas import from Myanmar Bangladesh must use all its diplomatic efforts and good relation with Myanmar, China and India. If possible Bangladesh may even talk with India for probable gas swapping with India. India may be in a position to spare some gas from Tripura fields for meeting the present demand of Chittagong which in near future may be delivered by Bangladesh gas grid to India when our gas system expands to Khulna, Jessore area. Or we may even import gas from Tripura if India agrees. This gas is mostly stranded in any case.

Lack of gas supply is badly hurting our economy and letting off negative signal to prospective investors in the industrial sector. Appeal to care Taker Government to explore every option before it is too late. Some people started talking about LNG import. It is not a feasible option for Bangladesh. For LNG import we need to compete with Japan, China, Korea and India in the region and will have to pay premium price. We have build LNG terminal and Degasification plant. These are not only expensive but very time consuming also. Country like India even did not find it too comfortable. So we may forget about it.

Another news is really disturbing this morning. It has been reported that people of Bhola may not have access to gas of Shabajpoor soon.. After years of hibernation we have finally decided to build a small power plant at Bhola .The transmission line from Shabajpoor gas field to the Bhola town is already built. The gas field is not small as being thought off. UNOCAL proposed to build WRIP based on this field. There is no cause for concern. This field can support the entire demand of the island for some years even after meeting the demand of the power plant. But the people of Bhola must not be deprived from the benefit of this gas as reported in a certain daily today.

We may not blame anyone but our luck. People thought managing gas sector is anyone’s piece of cake. If we had proper professionals in gas sector planning this may not have happened. Our gas sector bosses did not have any vision any clue at all. They did not listen to bright young professionals. Many of them left the sector and gone abroad. Corrupt fortune seekers were preferred over committed honest professionals. Mining engineers, Geologists and Retired Army personnel crippled gas sector and the nation is now paying very heavy price. Petrobangla and Titas could not maintain its glorious start. Two of the past Petrobangla Chairmen are now being sought for specific corruption cases. Many of Titas personnel made millions at the expense of poor tax payers .The nation is suffering from gas crisis energy crisis. Technical matters must have been handled by appropriate technical personnel not by civil or military bureaucrats. If we do not learn the lesson even now our dooms day may not be very far.

Khondkar Abdus Saleque