State-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex) is working to install a pipeline to carry new gas from the recently discovered fourth well of the Srikail East-1 gas field in Brahmanbaria.
Officials hope that after the completion of the 10-kilometre pipeline, 10 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas will be added daily to the national grid this year, reducing the current gas crisis facing the country.
According to Bapex, a tender has been floated to install the new pipeline from the well to the national grid and other equipment.
“Now the tender evaluation work is going on. Hope the installation work of the pipeline will start soon,” said an official, requesting anonymity
The official said the total gas reserve in the Srikail East-1 field is 71 billion cubic feet (bcf) from where 50 bcf can be extracted.
According to the Bapex, the new gas reserve was found at a depth of 3,065 metres and the fourth well can produce around 10-12 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas per day.
“If we extract on average 10 million cubic feet of gas per day, there is a reserve for 14 years in the field,” said the official.
Bapex is now extracting and supplying to the national gas transmission line 29 million cubic feet of gas every day on average from three wells in the Srikail-1 field.
Senior Secretary to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division Md Anisur Rahman expressed the hope that they would be able to supply gas from the fourth well to the national gas grid line by next December.
Earlier, after a three-dimensional geological survey in 2017 and 2018, Bapex found the existence of gas in the fourth well. Later, on October 28, 2019, the agency started excavation work of the project by placing a rig in the agricultural land in Hajipur village at Nabinagar upazila in Brahmanbaria.
The excavation work was completed on January 31, 2020. After that, the gas pressure test was started on the night of March 3 by firing the pipe. On March 4, gas reserve was confirmed in the well. It will be possible supply gas to the grid from the well by laying only 10 kilometres of pipeline.
State Minister for Power Energy and Mineral Resources, Nasrul Hamid recently said currently a maximum of 2,700 million cubic feet of gas is being produced from 27 wells.
“But there is move towards import to ensure uninterrupted and affordable energy in the face of ever-increasing demand. The demand for gas hasn’t decreased even during the Covid-19 epidemic,” he said.
Sources said Bangladesh currently has a demand for 3700 mmcfd of gas every day against the supply of 2,700 mmcfd with the shortage amounting to 1,000 mmcfd.
In the last 11 years, the country's power generation capacity has increased at least 4.5 times. There has also been a spectacular improvement in the energy sector.
Against the backdrop of an ever-increasing gas demand, the government decided to import LNG in 2010 to meet the country’s dire energy deficit and finally the LNG import was started from 2018.
Of the two operational Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU), US-based LNG Company Excelerate Energy started supplying regasified LNG commercially on August 18, 2018 and local Summit Group on April 29, 2019.
Each of the FSRUs has a capacity to regasify around 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of LNG.