Call for India-Bangladesh cooperation in gas exploration

India and Bangladesh should go for joint exploration of gas to overcome hurdles of resource and logistic mobilisation, poor connectivity and reduction in the cost of exploration, experts say.

The two day international conference on 'The present and future of natural gas: Challenges and opportunities in NE India' was organised at in Agartala by the Synergy For Energy Challenges and Opportunities in N-E (SECONE).

 This organisation is funded by Indian energy companies like ONGC, GAIL, and Indian Oil Limited.

“Gas is a clean fuel and is the part of the energy. The focus of the conference is natural gas and we have chosen Tripura because it is lying between Bangladesh and Myanmar. The entire region starting from Bangladesh to Myanmar is gas-rich," said Anil Kumar Saikia, secretary of SECONE.

"If more focus is given, there will be more production of gas, more exploration and more gas based industries will come up and there will be more development of the region,” he said.

According to him, the biggest hurdle while exploring gas in this region is logistics and tough terrain which drives up exploration cost.

Moreover, there is transportation bottleneck along with the law and order issues but Saikia said that was getting better.

Most of the experts of both India and Bangladesh expressed that both the nations should cooperate in using each other expertise, territory for resource mobilization and equipment in the exploration sector to bring down costs and make projects viable.

“Bangladesh, Northeast India and Myanmar are endowed with natural resources. But our reserves are small because we could not explore it. That is why none of us performed well," said Maqbul Elahi, former director of Petro Bangla.

"Politically, we are different countries but geologically we are one. So, we need to connect our borders and cut down costs on mobilisation of equipment," he said.

“To drill one well you need to mobilise 1,200 tonnes of equipments. If we use the Bangladesh roads and mobilise the equipments to Tripura or Myanmar side, then cost are cut down sharply. Even reaching Upper Assam from Sylhet is just six to seven hours."

ONGC Tripura Asset Manager SC Soni expressed the need for regional cooperation in energy sector between India, Myanmar and Bangladesh for development and prosperity.

 Beside cooperation in gas exploration, Soni stressed the need for a gas grid system between India, Myanmar and Bangladesh so that surplus gas can be exchanged suitably.”

He viewed that Bangladesh and Northeast India both have gas which needs to be tapped in a planned way.

Soni said a gas grid should connect Northeast India to neighbouring nations by 2030.

Tripura exports 100MW power to Bangladesh from the Palatana gas based power project.