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Tuesday | October 06, 2026 | Dhaka
Petrobangla to exam assets

Govt to purchase Chevron`s stakes

 New Nation
 Published: 12:00 AM, 30 October 2016

Anisul Islam Noor :
The government has decided to purchase Chevron Bangladesh’s stakes after an independent assessment on it, sources of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources said.
The executives of Chevron recently informed the ministry that they want to leave Bangladesh by selling it.
Getting government’s direction the sate owned Petrobangla decided to assess independently the assets and liabilities of Chevron Bangladesh before making any decision over buying its local stakes, sources said.
Petrobangla has decided to appoint an international consultant to assess the actual strength of Chevron Bangladesh in terms of its assets and liabilities, said Istiaque Ahmad, Petrobangla chairman.
A number of global firms, including Indian Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Hong Kong-listed United Energy Group Ltd, are in talks to purchase Chevron Bangladesh’s natural gas assets, industry insiders said.
The US oil producer has been divesting assets to counter an energy-price slump. Chevron has been seeking around $2 billion from sale of natural gas assets in Bangladesh, they added.
Another Petrobangla official said the organisation intends to carry out an independent review of Chevron Bangladesh’s assets, as it has ‘little’ faith on the IOC’s asset review, which it submits to Petrobangla periodically under contract terms.
Chevron Bangladesh might have exaggerated asset evaluation in its reports submitted to Petrobangla, he added.
Officials said the US energy giant was initially eyeing to sell majority of its stakes in Bangladesh operations by retaining the operatorship of all three onshore gas-fields.
The company is already in talks with several potential buyers over its planned sale of Bangladesh stakes, but is yet to reach any deal in this regard. Petrobangla is the supervising authority of Chevron’s operations in Bangladesh’s oil and gas sector. According to the existing agreements between Chevron Bangladesh and Petrobangla, the company will not be able to sell or hand over its stakes to any company without prior approval of Petrobangla.
Chevron is currently the largest producer of natural gas in the country, delivering around 1,538 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas.
It accounts for over 56.50 per cent of the country’s total supply of 2,684 mmcfd from three of its onshore gas-fields Bibiyana, Jalalabad and Moulvi Bazar located in blocks 12, 13 and 14 respectively in Sylhet region, according to Petrobangla’s recent data.
The company has separate production-sharing contracts (PSCs) with Petrobangla for three of its gas-fields and none of these will expire before 2028. Chevron started supplying natural gas commercially from Bibiyana gas-field from March 2007 with an initial production capacity of 250 mmcfd after an initial investment of $200 million.
Chevron Bangladesh is currently getting around $2.76 per mcf (1,000 cubic feet) for gas from Bibiyana.