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 BANGLADESH
South Asia
Bangladesh is a gas-prone country with large dry gas
fields producing from Miocene reservoirs laid down on a passive
continental margin along a trend through the centre of the country and
extending offshore.
Gas production began in 1960 from the onshore Chattak
Field and now comes from over 10 fields including Bibiyana, Titas,
Habiganj, Kailashtilla, Rashidpur, and Jalalabad, either operated by
Petrobangla, the state company or by Unocal.
 Offshore gas production from the Sangu field, operated by
Cairn, began in June 1998. Bangladeshi gas is very dry and production of
NGLs is only about 300 Bbls per day. Furthermore, the only oil
production is from early Tertiary sediments of the Surma basin in the
northeast. Here minor oil from the Sylhet field has been produced since
1987, derived from source rocks laid down in the remnants of a rifted
basin along the former continental margin. There is no offshore oil
production.
Offshore: The huge Bengal fan that flows out from
the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers created a very wide and thick offshore
shelf of sediments. Union Oil discovered the Kutudbia gas field offshore
in 1977 but it has not been developed.
In the early 1990s Cairn Energy, aware of the potential
for new markets for gas in power generation, began to explore and
discovered the Sangu gas field in 1996 in Block 16, with reserves of
around 30 Bcm. Production from the Sangu Development Area began in 1998
at a rate of 1.3 Bcm per year to Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second largest
city.
The field has the capacity to produce 2.5 Bcm. Cairn has
built a strong acreage position in the area, including acquiring Shell’s
interests, and is hoping for substantial gas market growth. Cairn
discovered the South Sangu field in 2000 and there are many more
prospects that could be drilled and developed.
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