State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Saturday expressed his disappointment over the performance of Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company (BAPEX) saying the government-owned company should stand on its feet rather seeking fund from the government to run business.
He said, "Government efforts to make BAPEX strong have gone in vain as its staff failed to comply with the government's move. There has never been any international-standard staff in BAPEX and they always rely on the government for fund to carry out its operations.”
The minister made the comments at a virtual discussion event titled ‘Energy and Power Talk’ event organized by Energy and Power, a fortnightly magazine.
Participants of the virtual discussion also came down heavily on BAPEX saying BAPEX let foreign companies drill for gas despite their discovery and in many instances, BAPEX abused gas development funds.
"BAPEX is the only company whose employees criticize others instead of performing their duty. The government wants to strengthen BAPEX but it didn't want," Nasrul Hamid said.
Describing the sorry state of managing director of BAPEX, Hamid said, "When the court asked the then managing director of BAPEX about the Tengratila, he said, he was a geologist, not a well-drilling engineer. That's the state of the MD of BAPEX."
Taking about the demand of transforming BAPEX as an international standard organization, the minister said, "To build BAPEX as international standard, we need staff of high skill and there is none at BAPEX now. BAPEX gave us a master plan about well drilling and when we gave them go-ahead nod, they even failed to give the drilling location.
Managing director of BAPEX, Md. Ali said they have chalked up six months of work plan upon being advised by the ministry.
"Our four rig machines are working in four places to drill well. From 2009 to 2020, we identified 17 new gas structures in the country and also working in 32 projects across the country" said the BAPEX boss.
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