Sustainable development depends on petroleum exploration in Offshore
Petroleum exploration in Offshore
Energy
drives the engine for economic development of a country. Domestically sourced
energy reduces the dependence on very costly energy import draining the foreign
currency reserve. This is specially true for Bangladesh which spends a big
portion of its national budget to meet its energy need.
In
Bangladesh the main energy sources are natural gas, imported crude oil,
liquified natural gas (LNG) and coal. Other minor energy sources are renewable
energy like solar, wind and hydro power. Natural gas is fully domestically
sourced while need for coal is partly met from within the country. They are
generally used for electricity generation, household need and fertiliser
production and some other industrial need. The LNG is mostly used as fuel for
vehicles and to meet household need and minor industrial need.
Bangladesh
has a limited known reserve of energy sources which will not last long
specially considering huge domestic consumption of natural gas and the need is
growing exponentially every few years. So there is a critical need to find new
reserve to reduce dependency on very costly energy import.
Bangladesh
needs to search for oil and gas in deep offshore areas of the Bay of Bengal.
The country has very limited known onshore hydrocarbon fields and the dense population
distribution and spread of built up areas make onshore hydrocarbon search a
difficult process. Still the record of onshore hydrocarbon search effort is
quite satisfactory. Bangladesh has vast unexplored offshore hydrocarbon
potential but we need initiatives to move forward. I am stating a few reasons
as to why we should go for hydrocarbon exploration in the deep sea within our
vast economic zone in the Bay of Bengal.
Secondly, oil production from shale fracking wells is not satisfactory. It is
not efficient. Oil produced from shale fracking yields 20-30% less than the
predicted production profile. This ultimately increases the production cost of
shale fracking oils and may make this higher than the production cost for
normal (sand) reservoir wells. International oil companies are now turning back
to invest in deep sea for sand reservoir wells.
Thirdly, natural gas consumption is rising
and gas sector is growing three times faster than oil. Low domestic gas prices
all over the world are driving the use of gas based power generation. Also, major environmental
pollution concerning coal-fired power plant are causing many countries to
abondon coal in favour of gas and renewable energy. All these will contribute
to increase in gas consumption and price hike as the gas sources are not
finite.
The fourth reason concerns the LNG. As natural gas consumption increases, it will drive the
need for the movement and conversion of LNG. The LNG market is expanding very
rapidly all over the world. It is already evident in the phenomenal demand of
the Qatari LNG - the largest producer/marketer of the LNG in the world.
International energy sectors are now making strategic move on investment in
offshore gas exploration and LNG conversion.
In conclusion, as Bangladesh is now becoming a fast
growing medium income country, it will need to shift to a high gear for
immediate offshore hydrocarbon exploration. This is to meet its growing need
for development and to reduce the drain on national budget for very expensive
energy import. It will make our development sustainable. Deep sea drilling operation
is expensive but now the drilling cost is almost half than the cost in the
past, For a quick turn over, international tender may be invited for offshore
hydrocarbon exploration in the Bay of Bengal.
If we look at Myanmar, Thailand and
Malaysia, we can see they have made major discoveries of oil and gas in deep
sea. In fact, both Myanmar and India are looking for prospecting the Bay of
Bengal for hydrocarbon. The Bay of Bengal may become a contested area for
energy exploration like the South China sea. We should better take the edge and
start sooner than later for both strategic and huge economic reasons.
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