Even as Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recently privately shared with electoral partners her apprehensions of US economic and trade sanctions, a three-member team of PetroBangla officials left for the US on December 2 to meet with ExxonMobil executives on resuming talks to allow the latter to explore gas in the country’s open deepwater offshore and onshore blocks.
During its visit, the team, led by a general manager heading research and development and engineering, will hold negotiations with senior level executives of ExxonMobil. The visit follows the file’s clearance at Sheikh Hasina’s level where it had remained stuck for months.
The file was with Sheikh Hasina after ExxonMobil placed a primary proposal aimed at negotiating offshore and onshore deep-sea blocks earlier this year. At that time, PetroBangla Chairman Janendra Nath Sarkar had admitted that the Texas-headquartered ExxonMobil’s proposal was under consideration.
Repeated phone calls and messages to Sarkar did not elicit any response.
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The PetroBangla team leader, a lady, was the technical decision-maker for the allocation of the gas fields — spread over the districts of Sunamganj, Sylhet and Bhola districts – to domestic contractors or foreign oil and gas majors such as ExxonMobil. At present, Bangladesh has 26 offshore and 22 onshore blocks. Of the offshore blocks, 15 are located in deep and 11 shallow water.
Two days after the departure of the PetroBangla team for the US, American Ambassador in Dhaka, Peter D Haas, met top executives of Biman Bangladesh, reportedly proposing his country’s interest in selling some Boeing aircraft. Biman Bangladesh sources confirmed that “an offer was made” by the US ambassador but were unwilling to disclose further details.
The global oil and gas company’s proposal expressed interest in direct negotiations on product sharing contracts (PSCs) at all deepwater blocks, data evaluation of select onshore blocks and planned tenders for the offshore blocks. Indeed, a three-phased timeline was also said to have been prepared ahead of ExxonMobil’s proposal.
This plan included not only negotiations over PSCs but also a 2D seismic survey over two years. The second phase seeks to focus on completing 3D seismic data acquisition and processing at high-grade blocks in three years. The third phase would involve drilling and exploring wells, again over a three-year period.
At present, US oil major Chevron has been exploring and producing natural gas at three on-shore blocks. Singapore’s KrisEnergy has been active at another onshore block.
The PetroBangla team’s US visit assumes significance even as much of Bangladesh is abuzz with impending American trade-related sanctions and other punitive measures for the ruling Awami League’s decision to go ahead with the electoral process even as the State Department has repeatedly demanded free, fair, violence-free and participatory elections in Bangladesh.
It was earlier reported that in the event ExxonMobil was awarded the contract, it would have to invest billions of dollars “to delineate new reserves” which could potentially help Bangladeshi improve its “dwindling” foreign reserves.
