Beanibazar well to produce 8-10 mmcf gas daily

Following the completion of all tests and trials, starting from Monday, the once abandoned Well No 1 in Sylhet’s Beanibazar gas field will be adding 8-10 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas to the national grid every day.

However, depending on generation capacity, the amount may increase or decrease, Sylhet Gas Fields Limited (SGFL) Managing Director Mizanur Rahman told the Business Post on Sunday.

“In any case, we hope to extract around 8-10 mmcf of gas from this well daily,” he said after inspecting the work carried out on an experimental basis earlier in the day.

The development comes at a time when a prolonged gas crisis has hit households and businesses across the country hard.

The well at Beanibazar gas field was abandoned in 2016. On September 10 this year, on behalf of SGFL, Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (BAPEX) as a contractor started drilling the well and conducting its workover.

On November 10, BAPEX confirmed that there is still a gas reserve in this well. However, the volume of gas in it is yet to be determined.

SGFL oversees a total of 24 gas wells and 12 of them are operational. The workovers of the Kailashtila-8 and Sylhet-10 wells are underway and the construction of a pipeline to add gas from the Rashidpur-1 well to the national grid is also ongoing, according to SGFL officials.

SGFL, which operates under state-owned Petrobangla, hopes that gas production will further increase after these projects are complete.

Mizanur said they have also taken the initiative to drill six more exploration wells to meet the 618 mmcf/d gas production target set by the Energy and Mineral Resources Division.

A 3D seismic survey is also nearing completion in Dupitila, Batchia, Hararganj, Jokiganj and Sylhet South areas under Beanibazar Field-13 and 14 as part of two projects, he added.

The country has 28 gas fields and 20 of them currently supply over 2,300 mmcf of gas per day under the management of three state-owned companies BAPEX, SGFL and Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Limited (BGFCL) and two foreign companies Chevron and Tullow.

BAPEX, SGFL and BGFCL manage 17 of the active gas fields and produce around 850 mmcf of gas per day. But that pales in comparison to nearly 1,500 mmcf/d of gas produced by Chevron and Tullow which manage only four fields.

BGFCL manages the country’s largest gas field Titas, which still has a reserve of 1.4 trillion cubic feet (TCF). BGFCL produces 404 mmcf of gas per day from 27 wells there, shows Petrobangla data.

However, American multinational energy corporation Chevron produces more than 1,200 mmcf/d gas from 26 wells at the Bibiyana gas field.

A simple comparison shows that Chevron is producing nearly triple the amount of gas from less number of wells.

The 17 fields, managed by the local companies, still have gas reserves of around 7.4 TCF, according to Petrobangla data. However, they are managing to meet only 20 per cent of the country’s demand.

On many occasions, energy experts have claimed that the state-owned companies have been producing less gas despite vast reserves for the sake of the domestic LPG business and its promotion. However, SGFL’s Mizanur Rahman refuted the claim.

Additional reporting by our Sylhet Correspondent