55 international gas and oil companies (IOCs), were invited by Petrobanglato participate in the tender for offshore exploration floated on Sunday. The companies belong to the US, Russia, China, India, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.
“Many companies showed interest to participate in the bid — many have already bought the multi-client data from the company that conducted the study,” said Nasrul Hamid, the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources.
One of the major highlights of taking part in the tender is the purchase of 2D multi-client seismic data for the blocks they intend to bid for from the TGS-Schlumberger, which conducted the survey.
“We are getting a huge verbal response from the IOCs,” said Nurul Alam, secretary of the energy division, at the press conference on Sunday at Petrobangla Centre. He added that the names of the IOC’s will be revealed once they submit the bif documents.
“The team has worked hard to prepare the PSC [production sharing contract] 2023 — they have studied the neighbouring country’s PSC and made it of international standard,” Hamid explained.
The new PSC has set the gas price at 10 percent of the Brent Crude price, meaning the price will be linked with the crude oil price in the international market. “It will create interest among the oil companies,” Hamid added.
Chairman of Petrobangla, Zanendra Nath Sarker, said that the contracts will be signed with the interested companies for nine years. “But we relaxed it this time. We divided the tenure into three phases — the initial study phase will be four years, then the exploration phase of two years and another three years for subsequent exploration.”
The IOC’s won’t have to pay duty for the import of machinery and equipment during all the phases, as Petroblanga will bear the income tax liability of the companies as well. Nath said. He described the situation as a win-win for Bangladesh and the IOCs.
