Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (Bapex) on Monday started drilling an exploratory well at Kapasia, aiming to produce additional 20mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) of gas, a top official of Petrobangla said.
It would be the second exploratory well drilled by the state-owned Bapex during the tenure of the present government. Earlier, Bapex successfully drilled Sundalpur exploratory well in Noakhali last year, the official said.
“We are hopeful of producing additional 20mmcfd gas and supply it to the national grid within July this year,” Petrobangla Chairman Prof Hossain Monsur told. He said, Gas Transmission Company Limited (GTCL) will install a five kilometres pipeline subject to success of the drilling the exploratory well.
“Gas reserve in the Kapasia structure might be 2bcf (billion cubic feet) to 3bcf,” Prof Monsur said. Bapex Managing Director Mortuza Ahmed Faruque said the company is drilling the Kapasia well in two separate phases.
“In the first phase, 30 metres of the well would be drilled while 130 metres would be drilled in the second phase,” he said. The government has initiated the Kapasia project at an estimated cost of over Tk 700 million. The government has also a plan to drill two development wells at Kapasia next year following the success of the ongoing exploratory well, Bapex official said. Bapex discovered the Kapasia structure in 2005-06 fiscal year after conducting 180 kilometres 2-D seismic survey under onshore block-11.
Bapex, however, will drill an exploratory well at ‘Sunetra’ structure next month, the Petrobangla chairman said. “Even delay in constructing the roadway for mobilising the rig, we would start drilling the ‘Sunetra’ well next month,” he said. The roadway construction for Sunetra structure delayed as a ruling party lawmaker who was awarded the job started to construct it, another official of Bapex told daily sun on the condition on anonymity. Bapex had a schedule to start drilling the well in late of January. “Bapex also a plan to drill another exploratory well at Srikail-2 next month,” Prof Hossain Monsur said.
Source: energybangla
