Kamruzzaman Bablu :
While Bangladesh is suffering from acute gas shortage due to dwindling supply against increasing demand, natural gas is being discovered wells one after another in island district Bhola, showing hope of light in crisis period of the country.
The full gas capacity is not being extracted because of having no institution to use so much gas in Bhola, As a result, it cannot be used for national interest since there is no transmission line to bring gas from this remote island district.
Meanwhile, expensive LNG imports continue to meet the needs of other sectors including power generation and industrial plants. But the gas of Bhola remains untapped.
Concerned officials said, it would be profitable to connect Bhola to the national grid by building a transmission line if more gas is available. For now, plans have been made to bring gas of Bhola in cylinders, but it has not been finalised yet.
After the discovery of gas in Ilisha-1 well, the number of gas wells in Bhola is now nine. The last three wells were drilled by Russian company Gazprom. Prior, 6 wells were drilled by Bapex itself.
According to Bapex, a total of 1.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas have in Bhola’s nine wells. However, this gas is yet to be connected with the national grid.
BAPEX discovered the Bhola gas field almost three decades ago. Gas was first discovered in Shahbajpur of Borhanuddin Upazila of Bhola. Then it spread to the north of the island.
Experts said, there are huge gas reserves in the isolated islands of the south of Bhola and the Meghna river bed including Manpura. However, intensive search was not conducted in these areas.
The 28th gas field in Jokiganj in Sylhet district is the latest gas field discovered of the country. Recently a new gas field has been discovered in Bhola. However, the official announcement in this regards is yet to come.
Bangladesh Petroleum and Exploration Company (BAPEX) got existence of having gas by drilling Ilsha-1 exploratory well in island district Bhola on April 28. The Russian state-owned company Gazprom completed the drilling of the well according to BAPEX’s design and data.
However, Bapex Managing Director Mohammad Ali
claims this is a new gas field. He estimated to have 220 BCF of gas reserves here.
Quoting the technical team, State Minister of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said, this is a new gas field. This well has about 200 BSF of gas reserves and it will be possible to extract 20 million cubic feet (MMCF) gas per day. He indicated to declare it as a new gas field after more test.
However, there is debate as to whether Bhola North is a separate gas field or not. Many geologists believe that it is an extension of the Shahbazpur field itself.
Bapex officials said that there are currently two separate gas fields in Bhola, Shahbazpur and Bhola North, and they consider the Ilsha well to be separate from them.
They said that it has already been confirmed by testing at two levels. It will takes time up to mid-May to testing of level III. Then it can be declared as a new gas field.
‘The Ilsha well is at least 35 km away from Shahbazpur and its reserve is separated by a T-Seismogenic barrier from the other two gas fields of Bhola- Shahbazpur and Bhola North Field,’ Mohammad Ali, Managing Director of Bapex, told this correspondent.
‘It has a separate fault in underground. The gas we found between 3200 and 3500 meters is a new layer. That is why, it is not part of those two,’ he said.
According to the stakeholders, the gas from Bhola’s well will not be able to play any role in solving the ongoing gas crisis in the country due to lack of supply system in the mainland.
They said that currently gas is being extracted only from four wells in Bhola. Average 140 MMCF gas is extracted per day from those well but it is not being fully utilized. Now, gas is being used in some small industries including four power plants and there is only 70 to 80 MMCF gas is being used in it.
‘The government has plans to supply some gas of Bhola to industries and factories in Dhaka and its surrounding areas through CNG cylinders. The process of implementing the plan is ongoing,’ an official of the Department of Energy and Mineral Resources told The New Nation seeking anonymity. However, it is possible to bring a very few amount of gas in this way, he added.
According to the industry sector, if the gas from Bhola can be brought through the pipeline, then big industries will benefit only. Now, some small industries are using cylinder gas.
A concern official of Petrobangla said that the price of gas brought from Bhola by CNG (compressed natural gas) into cylinders including transportation and processing costs has been proposed to Tk 30.50 at the entrepreneur level and Tk 47.60 at the customer level.
It was thought that it would be cost-effective due to the high price of LNG in the world market. However, currently the price of LNG in the spot market of the international market has decreased again. As a result, even though gas of Bholar is brought to Dhaka in cylinders, it is difficult to find a market for it, industry insiders said.
According to the Energy Department, the government has big plans for gas of Bhola. The main objective of this plan is to bring the country to the mainland through pipelines. One pipeline from Bhola through Barisal to Khulna and another to Jajira end of Padma Bridge is part of this plan.
However, to implement this plan, it is necessary to determine how much gas can be stored in Bhola region. Currently discovered gas is not enough to supply the entire Southwest for 20-25 years in a long pipeline, said sector’s experts.
